Feminism and a world designed for men

[friendofdorothy]

Interested piece in the paper about Parkinson being unrepentant for the sexist way he interviewed Helen Mirren in the 1975. It was 'of its time' he says. 'No harm done' he says.

His kind of blatant 'how can I take you serious if you have breasts' talk certainly blighted my younger life. Certainly that kind of personal talk was rife when I started work. Perhaps its usually expressed less blatently today - but as I hear from my female young relatives it certainly hasn't disappeared completely.

 

[Manter]

I don’t really know where this goes, but I watched a really interesting interaction recently. Bakerloo line on the way into work. Youngish (30 ish), attractive woman in a suit reading a book on theoretical physics. Not phd stuff, but the difficult end of popular science.

One of those random things happened which makes everyone on the tube move around and make eye contact and sort of interact with each other in a way we Londoners normally avoid. And someone remarked as all the kerfuffle was settling down, what’s that you’re reading. Woman turned it so the cover was facing the man who had asked, (who said wow, impressive) and then sort of laughed and said ‘not that I understand half of it, mind’.

And that was what struck me as interesting. She clearly did understand. She was engrossed before we all had to faff around and she was interrupted. But she felt the need to minimise or dismiss her own cleverness, and two men looked at her with one of those assessing looks (felt like ‘hot and clever but not too clever or threatening- want’).

It was fascinating. And I was left wondering whether men do that self deprecating thing (I don’t remember often seeing it) and whether, if she’d been older/less stereotypically feminine and attractive she’d have done it either. Maybe if you are freed from the chains of conventional sexual attractiveness a bit you are freed to not give a fuck.

Anyway. Fascinating to watch

 

[Manter]

Interested piece in the paper about Parkinson being unrepentant for the sexist way he interviewed Helen Mirren in the 1975. It was 'of its time' he says. 'No harm done' he says.

His kind of blatant 'how can I take you serious if you have breasts' talk certainly blighted my younger life. Certainly that kind of personal talk was rife when I started work. Perhaps its usually expressed less blatently today - but as I hear from my female young relatives it certainly hasn't disappeared completely.

IME in some areas it has gone entirely. I don’t encounter anything that blatant in my working life any more. It’s just ceased to exist. But all the insidious attitudes that underlay it- well, they are still there

 

[8ball]

Yes I noticed that too

If this is a reference to overspending on my post account, I did want to respond to those who had posted in response to me earlier (although the ratios went a bit awry), but I appreciate there would have been quite a few without that, so I’ll leave the thread alone from here and let the numbers correct themselves naturally.

<reports own post and retires to Banville>

 

[Gramsci]

That’s not true. There are a load of issues with the apprenticeship scheme as it’s currently set up, how the funding works and what you can use it for etc. I see it more used by retailers to develop store managers than by construction to develop traditional skills; but even so there are female-focused schemes, such as Morris Roe’s (and British Gas’)- those are just two I know about, there are undoubtably others.

From people I know who work in the construction industry they paid themselves for the City and Guilds in plumbing and electrical work. Not the companies they work for. Its not cheap.

The construction industry now works using so called "self employment" and subcontracting. One might work for a company but they treat you as "self employed". So they have no obligations to you regarding anything from maternity leave , sick pay, holiday pay.

I tried to look up British Gas. Looks like they get help from the European Social fund.

Employers aren't into training people properly with their own money.

Construction industry have also used EU as source of trained labour. Reducing cost to them of training. My electrician friend works mainly with Romanians.

Business in this country has had it easy since Thatcher's time.

What this country has is cheap flexible labour force. And low productivity. Suits Capital.

it historically was so called loony left Councils like in Lambeth who really tried to encourage and support women to get proper training in construction trades. My point is that these things are forgotten and should be brought back.

Imo it needs left government in power now who would do the same.

 

[Santino]

I don’t really know where this goes, but I watched a really interesting interaction recently. Bakerloo line on the way into work. Youngish (30 ish), attractive woman in a suit reading a book on theoretical physics. Not phd stuff, but the difficult end of popular science.

One of those random things happened which makes everyone on the tube move around and make eye contact and sort of interact with each other in a way we Londoners normally avoid. And someone remarked as all the kerfuffle was settling down, what’s that you’re reading. Woman turned it so the cover was facing the man who had asked, (who said wow, impressive) and then sort of laughed and said ‘not that I understand half of it, mind’.

And that was what struck me as interesting. She clearly did understand. She was engrossed before we all had to faff around and she was interrupted. But she felt the need to minimise or dismiss her own cleverness, and two men looked at her with one of those assessing looks (felt like ‘hot and clever but not too clever or threatening- want’).

It was fascinating. And I was left wondering whether men do that self deprecating thing (I don’t remember often seeing it) and whether, if she’d been older/less stereotypically feminine and attractive she’d have done it either. Maybe if you are freed from the chains of conventional sexual attractiveness a bit you are freed to not give a fuck.

Anyway. Fascinating to watch

I think that to a degree both men and women (not all men, not all women) play down their interest in 'difficult' or obscure subjects, but I'm sure that there's a different dimension to that down-playing for women.

 

[Treacle Toes]

Yeah. Lots of pages of men telling women they aren’t doing feminism right. Some well meaning but misguided, some malicious.

Worth saying, mind, that I really welcome men into these conversations. I just hate the pages of willy waving that break out periodically. Genuinely well intentioned conversation- even if occasionally a bit off the mark- I also really welcome. It’s the hyper-masculine point scoring with a side serving of barely concealed misogyny that grates as it then takes all the decent men off down a rabbit hole.

Worth saying to whom Manter ? Me or some of the men reading this thread?

Honestly, the hyper-masculine stuff is the easy shit to deal with, like an out and out racist...you know our starting point...it's out there and can be owned, challenged or avoided...the needling 'cheer up love' because you dare to point out that they are flooding the thread with 'hmmm, what about this I don't actually care about' rubbish...'oh, I will think about that, 'I'm learning' whilst mansplaining the irrelevant as standard...no, that is the boring stuff and no matter how much we say, could you just think about, or hmm maybe if you could just read and learn/stop posting and think etc. Nope, the response is there must be something wrong with you/me as a woman, 'cheer up love'... 'you on the blob' ...'I'll go now before you run to mother/have me banned etc'

 

[Manter]

Worth saying to whom Manter ? Me or some of the men reading this thread?

Honestly, the hyper-masculine stuff is the easy shit to deal with, like an out and out racist...you know our starting point...it's out there and can be owned, challenged or avoided...the needling 'cheer up love' because you dare to point out that they are flooding the thread with 'hmmm, what about this I don't actually care about' rubbish...'oh, I will think about that, 'I'm learning' whilst mansplaining the irrelevant as standard...no, that is the boring stuff...and no matter how much we say, could you just think about, or hmm maybe if you could just read and learn/stop posting and think etc. etc... nope....the response is there must be something wrong with you/me as a woman, 'cheer up love'... 'you on the blob' ...'I'll go now before you run to mother/have me banned etc'...

To the male contributors. I don’t want men to stop posting and thinking, I want them to stop playing games and/or taking over

 

[friendofdorothy]

To the male contributors. I don’t want men to stop posting and thinking, I want them to stop playing games and/or taking over

I'd like to see at least 51% of posts from women.

 

[Steel Icarus]

I'd like to see at least 51% of posts from women.

It won't change the structure of the boards, you know

 

[Treacle Toes]

 

[mango5]

We know, @S_I. Thanks for rubbing it in.

51% on this thread was never an aim, I read it as a wistful suggestion to discover an open conversational space where women dominate on the subjects that affect us more than we realise.

Just as the frequently repeated plea/request to men to pipe down is yet another victory for hope over experience

/humourless harridan

 

[mango5]

Not sure what to think about this. Everyone loses out from the fear and loathing of female bodies as well as the normalisation of bloody slaughter.

 

[mango5]

I'm getting rather grumpy and impatient too.

I am still grumpy and impatient, an internet age (one whole month) later.
I found these recordings today, not sure when I'm going to have the patience to watch/listen tho. tbh I prefer conversation on threads than passive listening to folk on a stage, but they have doubtless thought about these things more than me and might be worth checking out.

Shaking off the shame of womxn's rage

It has been argued that 2018 was the year womxn’s rage filled our screens, and a pivotal time for womxn freely expressing their anger. In this episode, we talk about whether as womxn we are beginning to shake off the shame that comes with being angry, explore different types of anger but crucially, question who in our society is allowed to be angry, and who is not.

Audioboom / The Feminist Internet Podcast: Recoding Anger

Social media demands intensive processes of self-representation and self-exploitation, and relentlessly commodifies women’s bodies and opinions. It also offers opportunities for women to develop their own voices and enact their (political) agency.

How should we respond to these demands and possibilities within a feminist framework? What do women look like on the internet – how are they self-styled and represented by others? Who is invested in female identity being constructed in a certain way - corporations? employers? universities? governments? Is that what we want?

 

[eoin_k]

[...]
Are women more oppressed by patriachy or by capitalism - I'd say both. I'm don't want to be told there's nothing I can do about the oppression of women, without overturning the whole system of capitalism. Again.
[...]

Would it be opening a can of worms best left closed to respond to this in a way intended as constructive?

 

[cyril_smear]

Would it be opening a can of worms best left closed to respond to this in a way intended to as constructive?

Would I be opening a can of worms to say women are ultimately oppressed by biology?

 

[eoin_k]

Can I just say... I'm not actually with him. (Just posting that makes me feel like a teenager disowning a laddish mate on a night out, but it happens to be the truth.)

 

[Poot]

Would I be opening a can of worms to say women are ultimately oppressed by biology?

No because it's not true. But do go on.

 

[TopCat]

We know, @S_I. Thanks for rubbing it in.

51% on this thread was never an aim, I read it as a wistful suggestion to discover an open conversational space where women dominate on the subjects that affect us more than we realise.

Just as the frequently repeated plea/request to men to pipe down is yet another victory for hope over experience

/humourless harridan

It would have been clearer and saved argument if these wishes had been made at the beginning of the three threads. Urban has often been the home of brutal debate but that doesn't mean things can't or shouldn't change.

I can see the value of conscious raising threads. An environment where natal women and girls can discuss whatever they want without having to endure P&P style interventions. Have threads like this. Make it clear that's it's debate but more than that. A place where women and girls expect to dominate.

Where a few digs can be made without blokes getting too offended. Where there is less male disruption. Urban has always been a free for all but perhaps needs to change.

I won't stay clear of such threads. But I won't argue. My daughter was reading here and was shocked at how I came across. I don't like that. I explained some of the beef because it's 20 years since I joined Urban and 18 years since a poster in these threads belittled my opening up of being raped and made it very clear that they cared nothing for men or their struggles. No solidarity.

This made a lasting impression. I don't want to fall out more with anyone here. So whatever I will stay clear of posting in CR threads but my will read and think etc.

 

[purenarcotic]

I’m very sorry that that happened to you, TC, nobody should feel belittled by sharing an experience of rape. I hope that Urban has moved on a bit since then, it certainly feels it has in the short time I’ve been posting here.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

Use of male mice skews drug research against women, study finds

 

[eoin_k]

I'd always thought the use of male human subjects was to do with research ethics. Young, healthy women who would make appropriate trial subjects tend to be fertile. Not to deny women bodily autonomy, but this throws up questions about the unintended consequences of giving the pharmaceutical industry more access to women's bodies and the downsides to becoming potential guinea pigs. (There's something here about a world designed for men not being only about male privilege, but also about how men and women have experienced exploitation differently through the sexual division of labour.)* Admittedly, the mice case shows that there's more going on here, but are there suggestions of how to overcome this with human subjects? Given the sharp practices involved in trials conducted in places like Africa, this gets bound up with all those other issues of wealth and power. That's not to say that women shouldn't demand better healthcare, or that the gendered aspects of technology don't need to be looked at critically... just trying to think through some of the issues this brings up.

* With women generally getting the low paid, or unpaid, low status, low 'skill' share of labour, as we should all recognise, so hopefully this is not taken as anti-feminist mansplaining.

 

[Manter]

I'd always thought the use of male human subjects was to do with research ethics. Young, healthy women who would make appropriate trial subjects tend to be fertile. Not to deny women bodily autonomy, but this throws up questions about the unintended consequences of giving the pharmaceutical industry more access to women's bodies and the downsides to becoming potential guinea pigs. (There's something here about a world designed for men not being only about male privilege, but also about how men and women have experienced exploitation differently through the sexual division of labour.)* Admittedly, the mice case shows that there's more going on here, but are there suggestions of how to overcome this with human subjects? Given the sharp practices involved in trials conducted in places like Africa, this gets bound up with all those other issues of wealth and power. That's not to say that women shouldn't demand better healthcare, or that the gendered aspects of technology don't need to be looked at critically... just trying to think through some of the issues this brings up.

* With women generally getting the low paid, or unpaid, low status, low 'skill' share of labour, as we should all recognise, so hopefully this is not taken as anti-feminist mansplaining.

Women’s involvement in clinical trials: historical perspective and future implications

 

[eoin_k]

Women’s involvement in clinical trials: historical perspective and future implications

At a glance, it looks like I was chatting shit. One mention of how fertility is an issue that needs to be managed, but no sense of it being a major reason for women's exclusion historically. All to do with much more clearly normative bullshit.

 

[Manter]

At a glance, it looks like I was chatting shit. One mention of how fertility is an issue that needs to be managed, but no sense of it being a major reason for women's exclusion historically. All to do with much more clearly normative bullshit.

Yup

 

[eoin_k]

Yup

It's a line of argument that gets deployed to rationalise the status quo though, right? If not formally in a hand-wringing way as part of wider public discourse. I'm not just making this shit up?

 

[Manter]

It's a line of argument that gets deployed to rationalise the status quo though, right? If not formally in a hand-wringing way as part of wider public discourse. I'm not just making this shit up?

Yes absolutely. It’s ‘think of the children’ taken to its ultimate, really. How can you argue when there are babies involved?!

Except that research involves a huge number of things, many of which would have no impact on a foetus, and there are all sorts of techniques now that mean even invasive tests can be modelled for women

 

[Poot]

You could handle it' said the leader of the free world, pointing to his wife.

D-Day veteran, 93, makes flirty remark about Melania Trump to US President

Yeah, I know, cheap shot, and I'm no fan of Melania Trump either, but no one deserves to be treated as property.

 

[Baronage-Phase]

I don’t really know where this goes, but I watched a really interesting interaction recently. Bakerloo line on the way into work. Youngish (30 ish), attractive woman in a suit reading a book on theoretical physics. Not phd stuff, but the difficult end of popular science.

One of those random things happened which makes everyone on the tube move around and make eye contact and sort of interact with each other in a way we Londoners normally avoid. And someone remarked as all the kerfuffle was settling down, what’s that you’re reading. Woman turned it so the cover was facing the man who had asked, (who said wow, impressive) and then sort of laughed and said ‘not that I understand half of it, mind’.

And that was what struck me as interesting. She clearly did understand. She was engrossed before we all had to faff around and she was interrupted. But she felt the need to minimise or dismiss her own cleverness, and two men looked at her with one of those assessing looks (felt like ‘hot and clever but not too clever or threatening- want’).

It was fascinating. And I was left wondering whether men do that self deprecating thing (I don’t remember often seeing it) and whether, if she’d been older/less stereotypically feminine and attractive she’d have done it either. Maybe if you are freed from the chains of conventional sexual attractiveness a bit you are freed to not give a fuck.

Anyway. Fascinating to watch

No. Men do not self deprecate. Ever.
And it's sad to read that story

 

[Steel Icarus]

No. Men do not self deprecate. Ever.

Are you serious?