Feminist pub XIX: The Bluestocking meanders into May

[YonicScrewdriver]

We're running at about six weeks per pub at the moment! So if you want chat with a feminist flavour, or with fellow feminists, or just want to admire our patriarchy blaster cannon and goat - welcome!

Last pub Here

A female Doctor would be brilliant.

I think Peter Capaldi's insistence on No Sexual Tension with the companion will help set it up.

We started watching the new series again from the beginning recently and it was an eye opener - the companions are far too teenagey swoony about the Doctor, it's ridiculous.

Woman Dr Who and woman sidekick. :)

Female Doctor provokes such irrational anger - I remember the threads before Matt Smith was announced - personally I can't see the problem - surely it's just as problematic for him to regenerate with a Scottish accent as it is for him to come out a woman (perhaps more, given that mentally his major character features stay, but his physical body always changes dramatically)

The Companion can surely be male or female anyway - I remember there being both men and women although I'm a Peter Davidson woman myself - so Bonnie Langford, and then the all-conquering Ace who I think pretty much every non-girlie-girl my rough age aspired to!

I've been brooding, and I'd like them to hit this head on with an asian woman doctor next time - just like ripping a plaster off, get all the prejudices out the way - I'm trying to think about who it could be - could the woman from bend it like Beckham channel her ER toughness and gain some quirkiness? Am I crazy for thinking someone like Melanie Sykes? Nina Wadia? Meera Syal? They generally go for relatively unknowns, but I'd really welcome something totally unexpected.

I think some more female writers would help too. I can't say for sure, and I did skim it quickly, but based on this list of names only 3 episodes have been written by women?

[Runs into pub]

Meera Syal as the Doctor! That would be pure brilliance! She's already been a character in it but that didn't stop Capaldi!

[Runs out]

Matt Smith was a 'relative unknown' but I don't think that applies to any of the others (old or new series).

I think it's more likely to be like the presidency - black male before they get to female.

Interesting thread running about ]genius, and a few pointing out that "genius" is mostly a male thing because there is someone supporting them (ie a woman), and there aren't a lot of men lining up to support the often difficult personalities of geniuses.

I think this is a very real reason that women aren't more often at the forefront of invention and change. Most people need a support structure to change the world.

But some outstanding women have had "the love of a good man" e.g. Dorothy Hodgkin, Marie Curie.

The Doctor-companion relationship can be very much on the pandered-to-male genius/long-suffering female helpmeet lines. This seems much worse with the addition of the whole sexual tension thing, so although I'm still making my mind up about Capaldi, it sounds hopeful.

I ordered this book for DS partly to try and be more concrete about his adoption and partly because he's noticing that he has a wiggly worm and DD doesn't (and coincidentally he noticed she has nipples the other day).

It has a great couple of pages on all the NON differences between boys and girls too.

We have that book too. I also like that it talks about similarities.

This has made me rage this morning.

A man has killed his mother, a man and a young child and apparently it's the mother's fault.

Fuck right off Torygraph, to the far side of fuck.

Yup, how often to you hear murderers, rapists, psychopaths having their downfall blamed on the upbringing from their fathers? Answers on a postage stamp.

They are reporting the words of another woman, the family 's former landlady. They could have chosen not to report it; she could have chosen not to get in touch with irrelevant information.

Yep, people pretty much always look to the mother for how the child was raised. But unless the father was 100% absents then the child's self identity is formed by the relationship between parents as well as the fathers behavior.

The single most common factor in abusive men is how their father behaved as they grew up, not the mother.if you want to know why a child grew up to be an asshole, odds are that their father was controlling. Of course, girls can pick up on those traits as well as boys (I did) but they tend to have other social factors which ameliorate them.

Edinburgh 'madam' Margaret Paterson to hand back £1m - www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-32875294

Good.

I can see why that got your goat.

There are many people who have had dysfunctional families, some not so bad, some worse - look at the stately home thread on the relationships boards. My dh's mother was an alcoholic - eventually that killed her - and he was occasionally fostered out as a result. So far so sympathetic. But we don't all choose to answer that with violence, let alone murder. What possible reason could there be to go for the 6 yr old girl ffs?

Christ knows, it just sickens me how often male violence is dismissed as someone else's fault, almost like society wants to see violent men as victims of something and not sentient adults with the ability to make choices.

Yet again, feminists seem to think more of men's abilities than others.

LassUnparalleled

Can I just disagree with your "good" assessment there?

Not good, for me, as this is the result of an agreement. I believe that there should be no such agreements in Justice. There should be no out-of-court settlements regarding criminal earnings. It might sound naive, but I think that laws should be applied, not just aspired to. This means that the criminal should not be able to make deals and agreements. The confiscation or impounding should be automatic.

The reality is they can argue about which of her assets were legitimately acquired and which were the proceeds of crime and run up court and solictors' fees.

The property she owned in Grosvenor Street will , depending on its size and whether or not it is one of the flats which has a garden , range between £300,000 to £500,000.

Can I have a moan? I've had the rug pulled right from under me over the weekend.
I could write pages and pages I'm so hurt/angry. My brother recieved about half an hours worth of voicemails from my stepbrother at 3am telling him how our dad (he died suddenly three years ago) never gave a shit about my brother and I, he never wanted to visit us when we children, how step mum hated having us at her house, and how he only ever came to see us after being forced. He said I'm a slag, my mother is a slag, my bros wife is a fat bitch, and he's going to knock us all out. He ended the voicemails saying he can prove dad hated us, as dad left him and our half sister 13k each with more to follow and db and I nothing, and it's all my slag of a mothers fault for leaving dad 30 years ago.
My db rang stepmum the next day, who didn't want to listen to voicemails, but she ended up listening to the first, and she basically said, yes, your dad was tired from working all week to provide for his family and didn't want to travel (20 mins drive) so just didn't turn up. When my half sister was born he went to put their names on policy, removing db and I, saying only the children who live with him matter. She genuinely can't see why this is upsetting, that we should understand!
I've had it confirmed by the person who witnessed policy, and it's not the money, it's really not, it's looking back my whole life, at my Dad's emotional blackmail, threats of suicide, when I wouldn't do what he wanted me to. He'd always say "after everything I've done for you"" if you loved me". It's having every memory of my Dad taken away, I've not got one single happy memory of him, every memory is him criticising or judging me, but I always thought it was because he loved me, but it appears it was for show. My brother is devastated. He was much closer to them all, my dad would say how proud he was of how he "raised" him, truth is he didn't do a fucking thing, it was all mum. He'd complain about us looking scruffy, but not help mum by paying child support.
I feel worse than I did when dad died, it feels like my whole life has been a lie, I keep seeing the five year old me, sitting on a step, waiting for him to come, and he was asleep on sofa after working so hard for his current "family". Couldn't even be arsed to let mum know he wasn't coming. I've read about narcissism and it fits them all to a T, he didn't see us as individual people, just tools used to control mum further, and somehow he brainwashed his wife and stepson to hate her too. I feel stupid tbh.
I have so much more respect for my Mum now. As much as Dad hated her, she was there, every single day, she was the one picking us up from the step, going without food herself to feed us, and the million other things she did to pick up his slack. I hate him sometimes, and then feel guilty for being mad. It's one big mess! Sorry to dumo this on everyone and I know it's prob not the right place, but I feel like I can't talk about it without looking like I'm grabby and want money. I feel much better writing that out. Thank you.

Oh INicked, that is horrible. I feel for you.

INicked, don't know what to say, so will just offer a hand hold and send love

INicked