Feminist Pub XX - may the summer rains wash the patriarchy down the plughole

[NoTechnologicalBreakdown]

Ooh ooh! Do I get to start it?

Wine and cake all round. And a celebratory burst on the patriarchy-blasting cannon!

Old pub here

The gp might be able to give you something for the pain. Hope you feel better soon, bad backs are shitty.

I have trouble with mine often and one of the physio excercise I was given a while ago is to pretend there's a duster in your bum cheeks and clean a clock with it!! I have a brilliant imagination but a duster sticking out of my arse is a step too far, cleaning a clock with said duster, impossible.

It's not so much painful as achey - like all you need is a stretch. But can't walk about stretching all the time. Can I!?

When I was pregnant the physio told us a magic trick that works for lower back pain - lean against the wall and press as hard as possible. That usually works, but not this time. I'm going to try the duster move. (Though I haven't held a duster for years, and I've never cleaned any clock ...)

Is it a left-to-right dusting motion or circular?

I'd better post something, you'd fallen off my threads I'm on list. I've been busy with back to school stuff.

I'm loving the conversation about books in here. I'm only reading books by women this year, I read loads, mostly fiction, and its quite refreshing to only be reading female authors. Some of the categories in a reading challenge I'm doing with a book club have been tricky to find by women but I'm managing (have you ever found a spy book or a westeen written by a woman? there aren't many around)

I'm back at school and it's quite startling to me this term how much more of my time is spent dealing with boys than girls. I've given out 15 detentions this week and only one of them was to a girl, all the rest were to boys. It's the constant interruptions and shouting out that boys seem to do more of than girls, but I don't know how to train them to be more considerate to the others in the class, the girls are mostly already quite good at thinking about being fair and letting the others learn/ waiting patiently to ask for help. If anyone has any ideas on the subject, I'd love to hear them.

Buffy's analogy is a good one. I would add that sometimes the roads seem to be built purposely to converge. I spend a good portion of my working life where the sexism road and the ageism road come together. It is not a pretty place.

MsMermaid wrote - "have you ever found a spy book or a westeen written by a woman?"

Off the top of my head, I thought of Helen Fielding's "Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination" and the books of Stella Rimington for spy books, but I couldn't immediately come up with any women who wrote westerns.

Which books did you find for these genres?

I've read the first Stella rimmington book for the spy book, I'm still looking for a western. I thought for a minute you might have found one for me. I've got til December to find one, so I'll keep looking and read the easier categories first.

I'm lucky slugs that the organization I work for has a feminist ethos; the outside world not so much.

What about Willa Cather? For Westerns, I mean.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Western_fiction_authors

Wikipedia has a few - I was momentarily fooled by Doris 'Bury my heard at Wounded Knee' Brown, who was a man - was there a fashion at the time opposite to now, with boys being given traditional girls names?

heard? Heart..

I was just coming to say Stella Remington - I've got one at home but haven't read it. Last time I read a western must be about 30 years ago.

But plenty of detective novels by women!

I like Stella Rimington, the first one was very good.

I agree.

People look at me as if I'm mad when I question such thing...

Yy

Though DH irons his own shirts and anything occasional I need, for the very reason that the bulk of the ironing is his.

I'd not thought of it like that - but I see what you mean. It may come from the idea that dressing in a smart manner equated to being wealthy (and hence being able to afford to outsource the up-keep of such garments).

DH irons the shirts in this household (his and school shirts for DD and DS anyway).

have you ever found a spy book or a westeen written by a woman?
Helen McInnes. (Spy, not western.) Haven't read any since I was at school and reading about a million books a year, unlike now.

Helen McInnes - Oh I used to read her books when I was a teenager! I loved them.

What counts as Western? (Thinking of Ursula Le Guin).