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

INicked - that sounds really tough.

INicked.

INicked

Have you seen the Stately Homes thread(s)? It might help?

Thank you everyone.
I'm thankful I went NC with his wife as I'd hate her knowing how much it's upset me, we were just coming to terms with dad's death and getting back to some normality and they do this. My brother is a mirror image of Dad, and he says he can't look at himself at the moment. I hate them for what they have done to him. I can understand them wanting to hurt me, I made the choices I wanted, not what dad wanted, they say I made dad want to kill himself when I said no to him, or did something differently than he wanted, but my brother complied with everything, he's crushed.
I've been trying to find the Stately Homes thread but can't find it, is it in relationships?
Thank you again.

Yes it's in Relationships. I think this is the latest one.

Thank you sweet that thread is very helpful. I'm going to link it to my brother too. He's struggling and I think the threads will help him.

inicked. It does occur to me that this stepbrother's rant may not really be an accurate representation of how your dad felt about your brother and you- a 3am voicemail tirade sounds like the SB has issues and for some reason decided to hit out at your DB.

Nicked that sounds awful. But I also think that only someone who is slightly unhinged would leave half an hour of voicemail messages, for any reason, at 3 am. I had the most horrific manic depression when pregnant with DD and needed emergency psychiatric help, but never came close to that kind of behavior. No matter how much you know the brother is stirring, it's obviously incredibly painful to hear. But do remind yourself that he is not acting in any way that could be described as normal. if your dad was an arse of the first order, you were probably much better off with your mum than having any love from your dad, it clearly hasn't left step bro in a good place.

I thought so too Errol, my brother rang stepmum expecting her to say it's all lies, but she was angry at her son for "spilling the beans". I really really want believe otherwise and I'm trying hard to, but when three people have said the same thing, and there's been a bit more info on other things and it feels like I'm deluding myself a bit. I'll be fine once I've processed everything in my head, but at the moment I don't know where to start.

kickass that's exactly what dh said! I've been talking to dh about something's that happened when I was a child, things I thought were "normal" , and he's gobsmacked. Dh said to look at dad's wife and stepson, how they have been to me and bro, that if that's my dad's love does to people, I'm better off not having it.

You'll obviously need quite a bit of time and talking to process this, but don't forget that even if their entire family unit all have the same narrative, then it doesn't make it completely true. My entire family believe me to be awkward and argumentative. Not one person who knows me away from the family thinks of me like that. However, my family bring out the worst in me so around them I do revert to being a bolshy teen.

It sounds like your dad was very fucked up, and didn't mind if he spread pain so long as he got what he wanted. You know that you and your mum aren't slags, that much is blatantly a lie. He probably DID tell his 2nd wife that he didn't care about you, but also told anyone down the pub how much he loved his kids.

Your step family will all gang together on this - it probably makes them feel better. You still had the wonderful mother that you remember, who did so much for you, and they can't change those memories. And, once you've processed this, you are able to walk away from them, but they still have to live with themselves.

What your step bro did was horribly nasty and intentionally painful, but I suspect that your childhood was considerably happier than his.

All Male Panels

Not sure whether to laugh or cry!

Yeah, ONE guy gave up his place, and it's seen as a victory. We need more men who realize that their power and privilege are unjustified and are willing to step down.

Yes - it would be funny if it wasn't true.

Last night, we went to the Hay Festival and saw Katrine Marçal on Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinne, which was very good. She said she'd been at one conference for economists, and someone (someman) she interviewed asked, "Who wrote your questions?"

Then we saw Caroline Lucas, who is just fabulous.

On the subject of all male panels, my geeky self is banging my head against a wall about this

I love their totally missing the point response - that there were no women because it was last minute and they couldn't find any, that they weren't needed because it was scholarly, not representational, and then went on to list a load of women in attendance (who must have been hiding for that session as they couldn't find them earlier)

Thanks for the link BlackRider! Apparently the British Library have digitized the entire run of Spare Rib and archived them all online: journalarchives.jisc.ac.uk/britishlibrary/sparerib Brilliant project!

My cousins' friend was apparently the curator for the Spare Rib project, and I've been told it took forever and a day, because they had to contact every single contributor to get the copyright sorted.

Just finished reading the left hand of darkness. Very interesting book. "So equality is not the general rule then?" An indictment of our society.

Oh I love that book! One of my all-time favourites, as are her invention of these androgens generally. Wonderful idea. If only genetic engineering could give us that right now, I think it's the only way sometimes.

androgens? Androgenous beings anyway.

Androgens? Androgenous beings anyway.