Dealing with sexism from unexpected sources
I’ve got a post up this morning on Tenure, She Wrote on dealing with sexism from yourself and other women.
Divide and conquor
Racism, always a national fact, not just a southern one, emerged in northern cities, as the federal government made concessions to poor blacks in a way that pitted them against poor whites for resources made scarce by the system. Blacks, freed from slavery to take their place under capitalism, had long been forced into conflict with whites for scarce jobs. Now, with desegregation in housing, blacks tried to move into neighborhoods where whites, themselves poor, crowded, troubled could find in them a target for their anger.
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In Boston, the busing of black children to white schools, and whites to black schools, set off a wave of white neighborhood violence. The use of busing to integrate schools – sponsored by the government and the courts in response to the black movement – was an ingenious concession to protest. It had the effect of pushing poor whites and poor blacks into competition for the miserable inadequate schools which the system provided for all the poor.
1970s. From Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States
I can’t learn this pattern
Some mornings when my alarm goes off, I find it impossible to get out of bed. This shouldn’t happen. As part of my strict migraine prevention routine, I go to bed at the same, social-life-killing time every night. But the fatigue is so overwhelming that I turn my alarm off, roll over, and go back to sleep for several hours. I then berate myself through most of breakfast about how lazy I am. Then, somewhere between polishing off the toast and finishing my (decaf) coffee, the first wave of pain hits.
I’m not tired those mornings because I’m lazy. I’m tired because fatigue is a premonitory symptom of migraine. This happens at least once a month and every time I’m surprised.
Lessons Sheryl Sandberg hasn’t learned
Another black woman, Margaret Wright, said she was not fighting for equality with men if it meant equality in the world of killing, the world of competition. “I don’t want to compete on no damned exploitative level. I don’t want to exploit nobody. . . . I want the right to be black and me. . . .”
1970s. From Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States
While you’re waiting for the bus
Stuff worth reading
These scientists said women wear too much makeup. Here’s why they’re wrong.
Canada in decline
All the jobs I was hoping to get have all been eliminated.
Best U.S. Neighbourhoods for Millennials
Terrible pay, high rent. Lovely.
How Christian Purity Culture Enabled My Step Dad to Sexually Abuse Me.
“If your behavior was more gentle, feminine, respectful and lovely would he be more inclined to be protective of you?”
“I dont know what Paul Newmans situation is but I make sauce.”
Best interview ever.
Comparative Readings from America: Housing, development and rents
Rent is damn high
When can I say I did it?
I finally finished my research proposal the other day. I should be celebrating, but I don’t feel a sense of accomplishment or even relief. Perhaps that’s because it’s not really done. I’ll get comments back from my supervisor, then do some edits, then get her approval to send it on to my committee, then get their comments, then make more edits, then get their stamp of approval and final recommendations before I can call the proposal done. Then I’ve got to actually do the work.
Or maybe I don’t feel like celebrating because I’m so focused on all the things I worry are wrong with my proposal, all the holes I’m afraid my committee will poke in it, all the things I didn’t include in it, that I can’t see its strengths.
Or maybe it’s because I’m realizing how hard it’s going to be do actually do this stuff I’m proposing.
Or maybe it’s because I’m sick and I’m afraid that’s going to keep me from succeeding.
I may not feel like celebrating, but it took me 2.5 years and a lot of migraines to get to this point. My project asks a question no one has ever asked before and uses some darn clever strategies to get around some cold, hard facts of hard-to-measure ecology. Maybe my committee will find a fatal flaw. Maybe it’ll go spectacularly wrong. But that hasn’t happened yet and so I’m going to celebrate. I may not feel like I’ve achieved something, but I have.