Women's rights general conversations - Thread 2

[Kucingsparkles]

Continuation of Thread 1

There is so much excellent information and so many active discussions on FWR that I wondered if it would be useful to have a thread to sort of "cross-fertilise" between them - airing little thoughts or vignettes that wouldn't themselves merit their own thread, to highlight other posts/threads of particular interest or to point to notable developments on fast-moving threads so that casual observers know where to look.

(For example, "the X thread has meandered onto a fascinating discussion of Y" or "Poster P's amazing analysis on thread Z might have relevance to the scenario in thread W" or even "Random bloke asked me to smile while I was choosing onions, grr"- that sort of thing).

Ha, I went down the well-trodden road of French, German, History and, um, Maths.

I went down the slightly less well trodden route of being expelled and put in care...

@Britinme - thanks, I found the right article. It's a fascinating article- I love Temple Grandin's ability to put words on her sensory challenges and thinking methods.

Wow, I had no idea that not everyone thinks in pictures, I thought everyone did.

it's blank in my head! No pictures. no nothing. Just a big black space.

That's my head.

I can't imagine how amazing it must be to have something other than only blackness up there.

So jealous!!

Words are my primary mode of thinking these days, but it didn’t settle as that until my early 20s - having started to switch when I was in 6th form.

It wasn't pictures before that though (or still as my secondary mode). I don't think there is a word for what's going on up there - I just call it 'thinks'. Whatever it is, it's a lot faster than words, so when I'm running bimodally (with both tracks covering the same ground, it's fine if they are working on different topics) I have to keep pausing the thinks and looping them until the words catch up.

Very verbal here, constant monologue going on in my head, would be nice to shut it up now and again.

I can do purely visual processes while listening to conversation, so obviously using a different part of the brain. It actually helps if I play a simple game like Tetris when on meeting calls so I don't get sidetracked by my own thoughts. I suppose that's why doodling also helps concentration in meetings.

I'd never really thought about how my thoughts assemble but only found out this week that some people don't have visual thoughts when I met up with a friend who was telling me about a radio 4 programme about people who don't have visual thoughts and that's how it is for her. It made me consider my thoughts which are a mixture. Definitely visual, slightly photographic at times - especially with books. I have a LOT of them and when I'm in search of one I can remember it's colour and which other books it might be next to but more detailed than that when I'm thinking about a paragraph, for example, I can picture roughly where it is in the book and then either the right or left page and whereabouts on the page - definitely words too, diagrams stick in my head, but also, like @BinturongsSmellOfPopcorn , I have thoughts that are too speedy to be described as either words or pictures and all three can be happening at once. I can be very annoying sometimes in conversation because I'll come out with something that seems like a non sequitur but it's my speedy thinks where someone has said something and my thoughts will have done about 99 degrees of separation and been lead to something that makes sense to me but would take a long time to explain to others. I don't do it all the time because I have enough sense to keep it to myself most of the time but sometimes it just has to come out because it feels "important".

Re podcasts, someone recommended Feminist Current (here I think) and it's really good. I would definitely acknowledge that this whole debate has led me to be open to the opinions of those I disagree with on most things. I've found that has enhanced my political and cultural understanding. That said I find it harder to forgive the hatred espoused by previous left wing allies, I think because I expected more of them. Owen Jones was mentioned. I think he's very much a fair weather friend, turns when he feels it suits his position better and if he looked into himself hard enough he'd probably find out that he was quite the misogynist. I gave up on him when he turned on Corbyn.

I have a LOT of them and when I'm in search of one I can remember it's colour and which other books it might be next to but more detailed than that when I'm thinking about a paragraph, for example, I can picture roughly where it is in the book and then either the right or left page and whereabouts on the page

I have this too.

Sorry, that was to IReallyLikeCrows · Today 01:32

I'm having to think (haha!) about how I think and it's a combination of all of these.

I also have a near-constant narrative/monologue/self-argument going on in my head like @ExiledElsie and also the fast thoughts that are too quick to get formed into words/pictures, but I particularly relate to what @IReallyLikeCrows says about visualising where my stuff is or where on the textbook page the information is...

Especially when I have to recall/explain stuff: I kind of literally look up with my eyes as if into my own brain to "see" the [internal workings of a toilet cistern/molecular structure of a protein/genetic diagrams for cat coat colour/how to wrap wontons/flowchart of how to discuss FWR with DH/etc].

Lots of people do that the looking up thing while they're thinking 🤔- are they "seeing" the way I do?

Going back to the internet rabbit hole, I've just listened to this podcast about how Scientific American went TRSOH-bonkers (posters may recall that SciAm was a popular source of pseudo-"science" articles/pretty pictures claiming that SeX iS A SpEcTRuM):

BTW the reason I've been getting a lot of extra podcast time lately is that the cat has taken to waking me up at fuck-o-clock in the night morning (because she can see a small area at the bottom of her food bowl) and I can't get back to sleep but don't want to bustle around and wake the house. So I lie on the sofa with with my headphones on and listen to podcasts. And the cat lies on me like she's earned it as a treat for waking me up.

What an interesting article on visual thinkers. I was listening to All In The Mind on radio 4 last week. It was about people with aphantasia, or no “minds eye” at all. I had no idea that some people thought entirely in pictures. The program posited that some philosophies, such as behaviouralism, may be based on the thinking style of their main proponents, sagas that it’s only relatively recently that we’ve discovered that this isn’t homogenous.
Very interestingly (for me as a maths teacher), one of the women in the show (not sure who, I tuned in late) said that she’d been asked to do complex maths whilst in an mri scanner, and it was the visual parts of her brain that glowed up. The article on visual thinkers talked about a link with autism, which also has its own link with maths. I think the ability to do algebra is actually much more visual than that author realised, but probably also requires other types of thinking in order to get to a skill level where visual models of representation help.

I can remember it's colour and which other books it might be next to but more detailed than that when I'm thinking about a paragraph, for example, I can picture roughly where it is in the book and then either the right or left page and whereabouts on the page - definitely words too, diagrams stick in my head

Yes, that's it, I do that too. And there's always a background chatter going on, like I'm in a room full of people talking quietly. Drives me nuts sometimes when things get really busy. I find it hard to think straight.

My visual memory is something I appreciate very much. With the gardens I work in, I can think of them and see every plant in my mind's eye. Even in a three acre garden I could draw the planting plan with pretty good accuracy.

We talked about this last night and Mr T suggested that maybe the reason I enjoy W. G. Sebald's 'Rings of Saturn' so much is because he writes visually. The book is full of rich description, a luxurious sensory bath for the mind.

I’m also a combination of visual thinker and internal monologue. When revising for exams I would create colourful mind maps and could easily recall and ‘picture’ these during the exam. I find it easy to create visual ‘stories’ in my head and daydream a lot - with people, places and action. Like watching a film.

When I’m out for a walk I do also have the constant internal chatter - like I’m having a conversation with myself.

I prefer words to explain things, give me a few concise bullet points over a diagram any day.

But I can think visually, conjuring up pictures of both real and imagines places. As for internal monologue - my stupid brain never shuts up.

I also found out over Christmas that I have time/space synaesthesia - I see time as spatial units. For example the year is a circle divided up in to segments. At the moment we are at the bottom of the circle moving slowly to the right. That segment is also dark blue.

Days are more linear.

SulisMinerva · Today 07:54
When I’m out for a walk I do also have the constant internal chatter - like I’m having a conversation with myself.

I know w what you mean.

Do you ever hear yourself answering questions about your life on Desert Island discs, for example?

Or not so nice, in a court of law over something you’ve done wrong, can you hear the sarcastic prosecuting barrister?

Do you ever hear yourself answering questions about your life on Desert Island discs, for example?

I do this and in contrast to real life me, I'm fascinating. Because in order to make the fantasy sufficiently plausible, imaginary me is so unlike real me in every way that I'm not sure she counts as me, other than being inside me.

I've wondered about an internal interview as a creative device, like Jimmy in the Commitments.

"So, angelico, when did you first realise how you could use your knowledge of x to accomplish y? Can you tell me what was really important to you at the time?"

[choose a preferred interviewer]

I think the ability to do algebra is actually much more visual than that author realised,

I am struggling to imagine doing algebra in my head without visualising it.

I did work with someone who had no mind's eye, he was quite clumsy, often knocking drinks over. He thought that might have been because he had no image in his head of where everything was on his desk.

Or not so nice, in a court of law over something you’ve done wrong, can you hear the sarcastic prosecuting barrister?
😁I can definitely ‘hear’ tone and accent in my head.

Whereas I'm struggling to imagine doing algebra without a piece of paper and a pencil!

I naturally go to words for thought processing, but also have the cocktail party in my head thing going on, plus a truly dreadful earworm thing (it's been Sondheim's Weekend In The Country for the last five days and I just want it to stop). I can do pictures, but I think it's usually subordinate to words...

I get earworms like that and they drive me nuts. Sometimes it's possible to replace one with Puccini's 'O mio babbino caro'.

Me too with ear worms. I memorised large quantities of poetry (has to have rhythm and meter though) in my youth - a consequence of not being allowed to take books into literature exams plus being required to include quotations. When I recite it, whether out loud or in my head, it's like putting a needle on a vinyl disc.

To drag the thread back on topic (and apologies for derailing though it was a very interesting article) a writer in today's Telegraph gets it but the commenters below the line mostly think the whole trans issue is mostly the fault of those awful feminists.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/14/women-erased-trans-extremism/