In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Weekly Open Thread with Bob the Street Cat

tigtog

This week’s Open Thread is hosted by Bob the Busking Street Cat, who enjoys rocking a scarf or ten. Please natter/chatter/vent/rant on anything* you like over this weekend and throughout the week.

A ginger tabby cat sittint up on some soft fabrics on a cobblestoned street. He is leashed and wearing a blue and red striped scarf. Behind him are the busy feet of passing pedestrians.
Scarf cat aka A Street Cat named Bob! by Moff, on Flickr

So, what have you been up to? What would you rather be up to? What’s been awesome/awful?
Reading? Watching? Making? Meeting?
What has [insert awesome inspiration/fave fansquee/guilty pleasure/dastardly ne’er-do-well/threat to all civilised life on the planet du jour] been up to?

* Netiquette footnotes:
* There is no off-topic on the Weekly Open Thread, but consider whether your comment would be on-topic on any recent thread and thus better belongs there.
* If your comment touches on topics known to generally result in thread-jacking, you will be expected to take the discussion to #spillover instead of overshadowing the social/circuit-breaking aspects of this thread.

111 thoughts on Weekly Open Thread with Bob the Street Cat

  1. He’s done this time. There is no possibility at all that we will be treated to Goodbye part 3. None. at. all.

    [Content Note added by Moderator Team: Suicide, attempted murder, rape, drug abuse, domestic violence, Hugo Schwyzer]

    http://www.hugoschwyzer.net/2013/08/01/goodbye-part-two-the-unpublished-story-of-the-attempted-murder-suicide/

    [MODERATOR NOTE: following some distress/disgust expressed in comments below, I'm redirecting further Schwyzer discussion to #spillover so that the various strong feelings about him don't overshadow the social aspects of the Open Thread ~tigtog]

    1. Ugh. I should not have read that right now. I’m going to go home to the manipulative addict in my life in a couple of hours and I’m not looking forward to it.

    3. Holy shit. We need a giraffe here. We need a giraffe because someone on the mod team needs to know that this was posted as the first comment on this weekly open thread and make a conscious decision what to do about that.

      Because there aren’t enough trigger warnings in the world for that.

      Here are not enough:
      Suicide, attempted murder, rape, drug abuse, domestic violence

      [Thank you for sending a giraffe alert ~ mods]

      1. I disagree. This is not an appropriate call for a giraffe. Yes, much trigger warning was necessary and should have been put at the top of the comment, and still should be.

        1. Really strong trigger warnings. I’m not sure I can even finish it.. Ugh.

          But I still don’t blame Matt for posting it.

        2. Alerting the giraffe to the lack of a necessary Content Note is fine, and indeed encouraged. Calling for a giraffe inspection is not necessarily a call for extreme sanctions to be activated.

          Content note has been added now to Matt’s original comment.

          1. Why thank’ee.

            At this point, I’m actually going to redirect further Schwyzer discussion to #spillover so that the various strong feelings about him don’t overshadow the social aspects of the Open Thread. Will add a note to Matt’s comment to that effect right away.

        4. I know I should have given it more though, but I assumed that linking to schwizzy’s personal website had an implied “all the awful things” trigger warning. I’d like to thank whoever called a giraffe, I definitely wouldn’t have thought of that as a way to retroactively add content notes/trigger warnings.

        5. OK, that makes sense. I misunderstood — I thought A4 was suggesting that Matt should be banned (or something like that) just for posting the link, which is what I meant when I said it was inappropriate to do so. My mistake.

      4. A4, I’m not certain how long you’ve been a part of the online feminist community – but for what it’s worth, there’s been a massive shitshow around Hugo Schwyzer and his so-called feminism (which actually hit a particular snag on this site, and I don’t remember if you were a commenter at that time). This site, thankfully, was solidly critical of his writing which came off as manipulative, creepy, and not at all feminist. This particular post is part two of the first post which sounds as creepy as what you highlighted (note that I didn’t read this new post because it’s fucking baffling to me that this idiot thought a new post on the same subject matter was a good idea).

        I assume that post is littered with his weird hanger-ons, and I think those fuckheads refuse to apply any critical thought to their hero. That sucks too.

        Fist pounds if you want them – Hugo sucks.

    4. Er, can we please not contribute to the outing of a survivor of rape/attempted murder on the internetz? (And no, I know he didn’t name her, but there were a fuckton of details, ffs.)
      And if you ask me, I’d believe a poorly-written but sincere account of a murder-suicide rather than a carefully considered attempt to manage his “brand” any day.

      That said, frankly, I’m over here enjoying the schadenfreude. “I’m flouncing again! Just in case you didn’t notice my flounce! Look at my flounce!”

      Pathetic little attention-hungry man-child.

      1. mac, thank you for hitting on points I haven’t thought through myself. It totally sucks that he’s being so forthcoming with her identity. I hope she’s doing well, wherever she is.

        And yeah, in general, fuck that guy.

      2. God save us all, he’s getting ready to write a book. Goodbye 2 was a friggin’ trailer.

        He has visions of prestigious reviewers praising his “unflinching honesty in the face of his all too human flaws…”

    5. There is no possibility at all that we will be treated to Goodbye part 3. None. at. all.

      Aw shit. I was looking forward to a whole season. (not)

  2. Well the leak of Larry Summers being the front-runner for the Fed spot when the consensus of people in the industry was overwhelmingly that Janet Yellen would be the best choice seems to have finally opened the floodgates in the mainstream media to Obama’s “Boys’ Club”.

    Here’s TIME’s Amy Sullivan now saying she noticed something back in 2009, (which sounds right to me). Obama got a bit of a pass on this in his first term from the MSM but it’s over now.

    On the bright side, maybe someone at the White House is noticing this coverage and will actually take it to heart instead of just reacting defensively as usual. They might even put together a list of qualified women outside of the usual ‘networks’ for reference, and keep the information in a pair of tidy binders for easy offline reference. 🙂

    1. Is this the same Larry Summers who opined from the Harvard presidential throne that women were underrepresented in academia because they weren’t as good as men?

      1. Is this the same Larry Summers who opined from the Harvard presidential throne that women were underrepresented in academia because they weren’t as good as men?

        No, actually, I don’t believe he is.

        1. sorry, but this is exactly the same Larry Summers as the “women are naturally bad at math” jerk from Harvard.

        3. sorry, but this is exactly the same Larry Summers as the “women are naturally bad at math” jerk from Harvard.

          Pretty sure there’s no such person.

        5. If anyone is interested in what Larry Summers actually said, here is the actual speech.

          His conclusion when trying to explain the underrepresentation of women:

          So my best guess, to provoke you, of what’s behind all of this is that the largest phenomenon, by far, is the general clash between people’s legitimate family desires and employers’ current desire for high power and high intensity, that in the special case of science and engineering, there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude, and that those considerations are reinforced by what are in fact lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination.

        6. I can’t wait to hear ambling’s response to this…

          That it proves my point. Did you not read the link? It literally says:

          David Gelernter, a computer scientist at Yale and occasional conservative commentator, wrote: “[Summers] suggested that, on average, maybe women are less good than men at science….” Well, no, he didn’t. But in the public debate, that is how his statement was interpreted.

        8. He basically said that the difference in ability between men and women, at the so-called top levels, was a more important factor in explaining the dearth of women in science than sexism and discrimination. At a diversity conference, for added fail.

          And I don’t think it’s accurate to say that the fallout was just, or even largely, media spin. If you read the Q&A period, the people– mostly academics, I’m guessing– in the room immediately started pushing back against his hypothesis, and bringing up data that contradicted it, even before anything was “spun.”

        9. Seconding Aydan. And ambling, if you don’t think his claim that women have less “intrinsic aptitude” toward math is a denigration of women in this context, try replacing “women” with “black people” and see if that statement gives you any rage or not, once it’s something that could apply to a group you’re part of.

        10. God, Steve, are you even trying?

          I’m trying my hardest to figure out how someone with a functioning brain could define ‘someone who doesn’t exist’ with ‘someone who’s been mischaracterized,’ and I can only come up with the notion that the person used the term ‘doesn’t exist’ just to be a smug annoying douchebag. Since you’re clearly not a smug annoying douchebag, I must admit it does have me confused.

        11. Steve that is a pretty common phrasing for that meaning. I guess you could try to argue that it’s intellectually elitist somehow. Or do you mean something else by smug douchebag?

        12. Seconding Aydan. And ambling, if you don’t think his claim that women have less “intrinsic aptitude” toward math is a denigration of women in this context, try replacing “women” with “black people” and see if that statement gives you any rage or not, once it’s something that could apply to a group you’re part of.

          I don’t dispute that Larry Summer is a sexist douche. He just never said that women are have less intrinsic aptitude for math. He said that men have more variance in aptitude than women, that is, have more extremely low-functioning and extremely high-functioning individuals; that is, there are more men at the extremes of the IQ range (well, actually not IQ in this case, but you get the idea).

          Now, there’s some evidence this is the case (read the link TigTog posted). There’s no evidence that said variability is innate, and not socialized, and I’m typically pretty skeptical of claims that mental differences between humans are the result of innate biology; they’re basically unverifiable, which make me question the political agenda of the people making them. I also think it’s pathetically obvious that the reason there are more men than women in STEM fields and academia has a lot more to do with misogyny than any difference in aptitude.

          But there’s a difference between saying Larry Summer was right, and pointing out that he didn’t actually say most of what’s been attributed to him.

          Steve, AMM asked:

          Is this the same Larry Summers who opined from the Harvard presidential throne that women were underrepresented in academia because they weren’t as good as men?

          In that context, Steve, saying “no, there is no such Larry Summers” is pretty clear. I trust it didn’t take you that long to figure out?

        13. In that context, Steve, saying “no, there is no such Larry Summers” is pretty clear. I trust it didn’t take you that long to figure out?

          Like Donna and eandh, it took me until you second comment to realize you were just being facetious. You really didn’t establish the context in your first comment. Then when people posted links to stuff that showed they got the comments yet were still willing to characterize him in that way I wondered how you were still going to insist he doesn’t exist.

  3. I’m writing a book about math education and numeracy and cultural attitudes. And I wanted to ask folks on here who don’t enjoy math or feel bad about it: If you went to college, how did you deal with your math requirement?
    And for the mathy folks, what is your verdict on statistics?

    1. I don’t enjoy math but I met my math requirement by taking low-level math classes. I only needed one, but I took an extra one anyway because I hate being bad at anything and wanted to push myself further (mathwise).

      Ironically, what helped me a lot was taking a math concepts class that was aimed at helping Education majors learn how to teach math to children. There were a lot of good tricks for dealing with/conceptualizing math and number problems that my teachers in K-12 never had time to use (or didn’t know about).

      It certainly didn’t hurt that the professor had years of experience working as a special education teacher either. I suspect I have a math learning disability though, so I guess it’s no surprise that it helped.

    2. Person here who loves math but sucks at it (I like to say I prefer it as a spectator sport). I’m taking classes on computing and astronomy that my uni agrees fill out my science requirement, but that’s mostly because I don’t have my 12th grade in math and I can’t afford the $3000-odd it would take me to upgrade when I have other options. I’ll probably do upgrading someday, and I think I’ll enjoy it. I have issues with spatial stuff, which makes geometry ridiculously hard because I can’t tell an illogical answer from a logical one (I’ve done things like come up with a radius larger than a diameter, for example, lol).

    3. I never really liked math; the flashcard formula memorization always bored me to tears in school. Despite that, I was fairly good at it. I took advanced math classes in junior high and high school, ending up in Calculus my senior year. I took the Advanced Placement test in Calculus and scored high enough on it that I got college credit and didn’t have to take a math class at all in college.

    4. I hated maths from the beginning of primary school and dropped it as soon as I could (fourth form). I don’t understand much beyond multiplication; long division was always beyond me. I’ve no idea whether I have mild discalculia or not, but it wouldn’t surprise me, because numbers just don’t mean much and I can’t do mental arithmetic. It wouldn’t have made much difference to any uni course I’d have wanted to do, could I have afforded it, but it narrows the sort of jobs I’m able to apply for.

    5. At my college, there was no specific math requirement, thank God. I met all my “science and math” requirements by taking courses in anthropology and sociology — which counted as science, fortunately for me!

      1. I should add that the college I went to no longer allows people to do that; they made the requirements stricter years ago. The trend in the 1970’s was to move away from that kind of requirement, but that was a long time ago.

        1. My college still has a similar system– I graduated in 2010, and I passed my quantitative requirement with one economics course, although I could have gotten away with something less mathy, like psychology or cognitive science (not anthro, though). We had only 2 general requirements, that and a foreign language requirement, and also I think some kind of freshman writing course too (I transferred in as a sophomore, so I don’t have firsthand knowledge there) and beyond that it was a weird percentage-based system– you had to take a certain number of classes outside your major, and then a certain smaller subset of those classes had to be outside of your major division.

          I go back and forth on how I feel about it– when I was in college I was really, super into the idea of the open curriculum and all that; now I’m less sure– possibly because I’m currently TAing humanities gen ed classes, and a lot of my students are STEM students who would not be getting near the humanities if they didn’t have to; but also because I do see the gaps in my science knowledge (not so much in math, since I had good math teachers in high school and went through AP calculus and was super into it, but my pre-college science education was not that good). Also (although I have never taken a stats class and it’s the one area of math that I have absolutely no enjoyment of or natural aptitude in) I really wish there was more understanding of statistics among non-sciencey academics, science reporters, and the general public, who all seem to fall prey to major fallacies in statistics on a regular basis. Still, I definitely think if I were founding a college or whatever, I would make the curriculum and requirements be at least somewhat open to choice and personal preference.

        2. JetGirl, sorry that my comment is kind of a derail from your original question! But if you can wade through all my tl;dr, there is a bit in there about my feelings towards math and statistics, so not entirely off-topic!

    6. I’m a math person. I have an M.Eng. degree and all the associated math courses under my belt: calculus, probability, differential equations, linear algebra, etc. Strangely enough, though, statistics was probably my least favorite math topic. I never touched it after high school. There’s something so…sterile and unimaginative about it to me for some reason (though, that’s just a subjective opinion; and I cynically admit that statistics can be manipulated to do some preeeeeeetty imaginative things.) I’m not sure if that’s the type of verdict you were looking for.

    8. BS+BAEM here. People always go, wow, you must like math, and I go like, no but my computer does. There are things I like, linear algebra and integral calculus being two, but there it’s more sort of wonder at how real shapes and systems can be brought down to an amazing symbolic representation. On the whole it’s stuff I need to do, but I don’t have to get all lovey-dovey over doing it. Going back even further, I loved proofs and basically all of high school geometry a lot. Again, shapes, symbol manipulation and systems.

      Statistics are the devil. Especially when uncertainty analysis is involved.

      1. Stats is hard, but it is hard in a way that makes me realize how amazing it would be to truly understand Statistics. I had a wonderful teacher in my (recent) Statistics class, though, and that helped.

        I agree with you about geometry, though. Some of my happiest moments have been spent doing proofs. Seriously, I have multiple happy memories of doing proofs.

        1. Oh well now, geometry is a whole other animal. I don’t even think of it as math. Doing proofs was fun. I also liked solving systems of equations. I like seeing the relationships among things.

    9. I love math. I think it’s beautiful. Math allows you to strip the world down to its most basic parts, look at it, see its relationship to all the other parts in the universe, and put it back together again with an almost infinite number of variations.

      1. Seconding this even though I haaated math in school and was terrible at it, as I detailed below. I wish I was good at it! It’s the language the universe is written in.

    10. When the previous resident checked out and left us to pick up the pieces, “really good mathematical ability” was one of the ones that got lost forever. Struggling through thermodynamics and mass flow without the ability to do line integration was… well. Let’s just say the answer to your question “how did you deal with it?” is “not well.” We didn’t pass* the Part I exams and that was the end of it.

      *Technically, we did pass, but not well enough to continue to Part II.

    11. I have always loved math. The simple purity of mathematical truth feels very satisfying to me. That some of it can also be used for science and to solve real world problems is a nice bonus.

      Statistics: I always found it rather boring in school and university, but I have changed my opinion later in life. I have had to use it quite a bit as an adult, and I guess it has grown on me. I am not sure why this is, actually. Perhaps it was an issue about the teaching materials or perhaps it is that I was not that good at it.

      I think that especially in maths, if you are bad at it then it can easily become very boring. You tend to have to take the shortcut of just memorizing a lot of formulas, and you never get to the stage of really absorbing and understanding the material.

    12. I guess I would be quasi-mathy. I was always the arts-and-humanities type growing up, but my dad is a math guy and was always sneaking it on us. Logic puzzles, calculating lottery odds, that kind of thing. So while I did almost bomb Calculus in high school, I still enjoyed playing around with math. It’s the one thing in life that always has a correct answer.

      When I got to college, I tested out of having to take math classes, but I still had to take Statistics as part of my advertising major. I really enjoyed it. We get fed so many statistics by people who are trying to manipulate us, it’s nice to be able to say, “Well, here’s where they used the median instead of the mode, and here’s something to know about the sample size, so this is why their conclusion is questionable.”

    13. I really don’t like Math, and personally think that it discriminates against me for not being intelligent enough to understand it. Math and I have agreed to stop seeing each other, and I am thinking of taking other actions against it.

      I haven’t attended college, so I am unacquainted with Math’s extended family, but if they share the same values as Math, I doubt I would be comfortable in their presence.

      I am not saying that there were no good qualities to the time I spent with Math as a teenager, but it was not worth the heartache. Ultimately, I am better off having replaced Math with a battery-powered device.

      1. Heh. I love how you describe your relationship with math.
        But if I may be contrary for a moment, I don’t believe for a moment that you lack the intelligence to understand it.
        I say that as someone who also dated math in middle and high school. It was a toxic relationship, one I left believing I was not smart enough to engage in. But 26 years later, I gave math another chance. We had both changed, and matured, and I finally knew what I needed in the relationship and how to set firm boundaries. I no longer believe the lie that I’m bad at math, or that I can’t learn it. I’m not going to become a mathematician for a living at this point, but I really enjoy numbers these days.
        And all of the above is the main reason I’m writing this book!

    14. I don’t really enjoy math, but I’m not bad at it. I managed to avoid taking a math class before dropping out of college (both times), so now that I’m a bit older and trying to get back into a thing via community college, I had to take the… whatever it’s called. Some kind of placement test. I tested into intermediate algebra, which I was surprised about because it has been ~12 years since I was in a math class… and since then, I’ve not done anything more taxing than making change. Anyway, since I’m trying to do culinary program, I had to take a culinary-specific math class. It was a cakewalk… but also super handy. I’ve noticed myself really using the concepts in a practical way.

      1. I love to cook, and I was surprised, once I started taking math again, how much I used proportions (which was a big thing in algebra).
        Maybe more people will love math if they associate it with food, especially pastry. Mmm. Pastry.

        1. I am really glad I finally committed all the conversions to memory. Mad useful.

    15. Math person here. The cultural attitudes are even worse than you might think from looking at the stats – those women and other minorities worked their damned guts out, only to be tossed on the scrap heap once they developed opinions of their own (unless they had ‘protection’). I think it all went wrong back in Newton’s day. Once Newton was treated like a god, every obnoxious twat dude born thereafter wanted to be a scientist. Admittedly, math is not as bad as physics etc. The whole system of competition is set up so that you win if you can best mimic the leaders – no matter how misguided they may be.

      If we actually had a culture of REAL productivity, the rise in progress would be earth shattering.

    16. I love math now, but in high school I hated it – I was a very mediocre student, and I was terrified of my high school algebra teacher, whose nickname in school was a lovely misogynist slur, Robo-b****. Nevertheless, she was not a kind or supportive teacher, and despite the fact that I enjoyed trigonometry even though I hated my teacher, it wasn’t until my college math requirement that I realized I was good at and really enjoyed mathematics.

      I’ve now had math up to Calc II, and have taken a “Stats for Scientists” course I enjoyed and did well in. My attitude toward Stats is that it is less a branch of mathematics than a new paradigm with which and through which to understand the world. If I could really learn to think like a Statistician, I feel I would be a better and clearer thinker (much as I once wished to be able to think like a Logician, back when I was studying philosophy).

      Geometry, however, remains my One True Love.

    17. My school required little of me. I took a low level math class that the professors called “math appreciation.” I don’t remember well but I think I exempted some 101, 102 level stuff. Sadly, I like math when my younger sister teaches it to me. She makes it fun and easy to understand. She also turns all the formulas into sentences and stories so I’ll have an easier time connecting the dots. The numbers and variables put me off and are difficult to remember. Pity she gave up on her original dream of being a math teacher. Now she’s a technical architect but teaches J2EE to groups of people at work when asked.

    18. Mathematics was a huge interest of mine when I was 17 – I fell in love with all the advanced math courses I took in community college. I never touched statistics, though, primarily because 1) I didn’t need to take it for preparing for my computer science major and 2) I was scared of it. I took a discrete mathematics course instead, which was loads of fun. (Set theory is so much fun!)

    19. I don’t love math–I’m better than average at it for a normal person, worse than average for a scientist. I slogged through two semesters of calculus in college with, iirc, a B and a C, and promptly forgot it, took calc-based physics out of some bizarre sense of stubbornness (C), and took a semester of stats, which I loved and did well in. That was slightly more than my science program required, but at the time I was also thinking of PhD program requirements. In grad school I voluntarily took two more semesters of stats with an emphasis on model comparison and analysis.

      I feel like there’s a pretty strong split between people who like stats and people who like the rest of math.

    20. I stopped understanding math around the second grade. Apparently I was able to understand enough to pass with Cs, but I never had any natural aptitude for it; reading and writing were my thing. My dad is possibly a genius at math, and my mom and sister don’t have any problem with it.

      When I went to college, I had to take remedial math, and in order to bone up to take that class, I decided to prepare by going to a store for teacher’s supplies and, no joke, buying elementary school-level math workbooks for kids. To learn fractions. Since, tracing back, I figured that that was around where I stopped understanding stuff in any real way. I was class-privileged, had parents to help me, didn’t have a learning disability, I just didn’t get it.

      I actually found it really liberating, to take charge and go and learn and actually, briefly, understand something that basic. The remedial class was still hard, but I was at least able to swing my basic requirements (with free tutoring provided by the school). For some reason, also, I had an easier time with algebra than fractions or geometry or graphs.

      I’ve basically forgotten everything by now, but it was a good experience. Why I’m admitting all of this in public with my name attached, I can’t fathom.

      1. There is no shame in your admitting you didn’t get something and going back and trying again. That’s what I did. I took the remedial math too, starting with pre-algebra. I’m glad I did, because I was wrong about my math ability.

  4. [Content Note added by Moderator Team: Suicide, attempted murder, rape, drug abuse, domestic violence, Hugo Schwyzer]

    Yeah, me too. It’s fucking disgusting to think that she has to be out there in the world knowing he’s posting this softcore porn about traumatic incidents in her life, including his attempted murder of her. And it is porn. Fuck, I will defend written porn in the abstract to the end of time and back, but this makes me sick. He makes me sick.

    2. yes. and I don’t see this as any different, really, from what he wrote a couple of years ago that caused so much outrage. It’s just as horrible.

      And there really is something pathetic about a “Good-bye, Part 2.”

    3. Just a quick Moderator note to cover all the Schwyzer bases on this thread: further Schwyzer discussion should be taken to #spillover so that the various strong feelings about him don’t overshadow the social aspects of the Open Thread.

      1. I know it’s not my blog and not my place to say, but I wouldn’t shed one tear if all the comment posts in this thread about him-who-must-not-be-named got moved to spillover.

        1. The WordPress software doesn’t allow us to move comments from one thread to another, AMM. The only option would be to delete them, and I don’t think that level of response is required.

          It was obvious to the Feministe team that Voldeschwyz would be mentioned sometime over this weekend, given his Goodbye post (before we even knew about Goodbye Pt 2). Leaving the current comments on this thread lets people know that the issue has been brought up and is not being entirely ignored, but that enough is enough on this particular thread.

  5. Last night the boy and I dropped in on a friend of mine who was having a birthday. Walking through the door I came unexpectedly face to face with my former best friend, whom I had not spoken more than a dozen words to over the last three years after we had a huge falling out, onstensibly over my then-kind-of-self-destructive ways and her tendency to be judgemental rather than supportive.

    We caught up a bit, took a few minutes aside and touched on the issues that caused our falling out (I’m in a much better place, emotionally, then I was then) and kind of called it water under the bridge.

    I’m processing a lot of feelings today. It’d be nice to be back in touch but I don’t think we’ll ever be quite as close as we once were.

    1. It’s incredibly depressing to see how the dynamics of the male domestic abuser play out over and over again throughout the world; with slight variations on a theme.

  8. I am feeling very strong in myself right now, which is not something I had expected of, for, or from myself. But I am making concrete plans to move out: I have found a cheap room for rent near campus that will allow me to keep my dog with me (amazing!), I am employed in two jobs and looking for a third, I am enrolled in my classes, and even though I know this next year is going to be hard, I feel… capable. I feel resilient. There comes a point where, after experiencing a sufficient amount of awful shit, if you’re still standing, general awfulness loses a lot of its power over you. It’s like – okay, yes, I am upset and distressed right now, but tomorrow I’m going to get up and get on with life.

    So yes, I am worried about money, I am worried about keeping up with my classes while working, I am worried about launching myself into independent adult life. But I am not worried about my self – the core aspects of my personality, my being. Because if even the depths of mental illness haven’t managed to shake who I am, and what I am, then the externals won’t.

    And that’s a very hopeful thing, I think!

    1. I’m glad to hear that, Alexandra! =] Since your situation (to my knowledge) reminds me of mine in some ways, reading that was a bit uplifting for me as well.

    2. That’s the way to be! Good for you. The tragedy is that you will now have to put up with 30 years of stupid people treating you like a 5 yr old who never learned anything about life.

      1. Oh, boy!!!!

        Right now my coworker is a kind and helpful man, six years older than me, who has helped me out in many a tricky situation… and who continually refers to me as “sweetie” and “cutie” and who insists on holding the door open for me. It’s driving me a bit mad, because I keep wanting to say — “I am grateful for all your help, and I often need it. But I need it because this is a new job and I’ve never done research before. I don’t need it because of my adorable femaleness.”

        But that would likely start a row I don’t need. Sigh.

        1. But that would likely start a row I don’t need. Sigh.

          No one needs a row, but right now it sounds like you’re dealing with a potentially hostile work environment. I would never tell you when to speak up, but you certainly have the right to. I have to say, these situations very rarely improve on their own, but if you are dead set against saying anything, maybe when you are more experienced at the job and you need his help less you could just avoid him.

          I don’t envy your situation. It sucks to be the newbie in the first place, then add this to the mix. Good luck!

    3. One of the greatest feelings in the world isn’t control, it’s competence–the confidence in your ability to handle what comes next. Good for you!

  9. Ya’ll might remember me posting a couple months back about having been raped, and there being a huge conflict with Dear Boyfriend over rape via coercion actually being rape.

    Well, I’ve maintained very limited contact with the guy who did it, mostly in group settings with other people who are aware of what happened.

    And then today I got this message from him via Steam chat: So, when am I heading back down there?

    I’ve kinda jut been curled up in bed ever sense. The idea terrifies me. And it brought back everything that happened in March.

    This guy does not handle things he doesn’t like well. He is extremely self-centered, and he makes sure everyone knows his thoughts on everything. Handling this is going to be extremely tricky. And right now I don’t even want to begin to think about it.

    1. As much as I was pulling for a female Doctor, I will join you in happy dancing. Going to watch some of his best screeds from The Thick of It.

      1. I haven’t seen that, but I loved him as Lord Fellamar in the 1997 series of Tom Jones. (“Loved” in the sort of skin-crawling way of watching someone do a very good job of playing a completely horrible character.)

          1. Willemina, he can do sweet as well. He was the ever-so-adorable Songs of Praise Tristram Campbell in Episode 2 of The Vicar Of Dibley, one of the first crushes for Geraldine Granger.

        2. I will have to watch that, adding some range to the vein throbbing apoplexy I’ve grown fond of would be grand.

        3. Willemina, he can do sweet as well. He was the ever-so-adorable Songs of Praise Tristram Campbell in Episode 2 of The Vicar Of Dibley, one of the first crushes for Geraldine Granger.

          …and the young idealist in Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero.

        4. Steve, omg! I remember seeing that movie as a kid, so double emphasis on young. I recalled the character immediately but wouldn’t have known Capaldi from Adam at the time.

  11. I had to open up about this somewhere… So, I was sexually assaulted (I guess? Still don’t have proper words for that…) ten years ago when I was 16 by a man who was 12 years older than me and in a position of authority. I thought I had put that totally behind me, until I had nightmares about it last night, triggered by something a friend posted on Facebook about a coach speaking improperly to young girls.

    It was just a nightmare and I will be back to normal as soon as I can stop thinking about it, but still it sucks that something that asshole did years ago has the power to turn a nice summer morning into a bad one.

    1. Kaisa, I’m sorry to hear that you’re going through that. You’re absolutely right that it totally sucks that memories being triggered like that can derail a nice day where you had been thinking you were over it.

      I don’t have any specific advice for you, but I’m sure some other readers might have some relevant links to offer to others who written about working through similar flashbacks?

    2. I can only empathize and tell you that you are not the only one who can be triggered by something that seems minute and underrated. I never know what is going to bring back memories of my abuse.

    3. Thanks, tigtog and Fat Steve! I talked about it a bit with my husband (and had a glass of wine!) and was feeling just fine by the evening.

    1. Wow, mac, thanks for that link – he is one hell of a guy!

      I grimaced a bit at “Until two years ago, sanitary napkins had a luxury tax of 14 percent, but it was reduced to 1 percent after pressure from advocacy groups and NGOs.” Sanitary pads and tampons get slapped with the 10% GST here in Oz because the health minister at the time classified them (along with breast-feeding equipment) as personal hygiene products – he compared them with shaving cream – rather than health products like, oh, condoms, penile clamps for impotence, sunscreen and the like.

      Of course even with that on top of the things being ridiculously overpriced here, it’s not remotely comparable with the situation for so many women in India, so sorry for the ranty derail and YAY ARUNACHALAM MURUGANANTHAM!!!

      1. Sanitary pads and tampons get slapped with the 10% GST here in Oz because the health minister at the time classified them (along with breast-feeding equipment) as personal hygiene products – he compared them with shaving cream – rather than health products like, oh, condoms, penile clamps for impotence, sunscreen and the like.

        WHAT? I’d really like to hear the rationale behind this. Especially as regards to breast-feeding equipment being personal hygiene product.

        1. The Health Minister concerned is the current leader of the Parliamentary Opposition (the one [about] whom our ex-Prime-Minister made that stirring “I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man” speech), and the government in which he was Health Minister didn’t really offer any rationale at the time, they just announced it.

          By deduction, it seems to be that anything men don’t need but women do is just some sort of feminine frippery rather than any sort of health necessity.

        2. P.S. that the current Labor government never repealed this legacy tax from the previous government is merely one of many disappointments in their failure to follow through on their social justice platform.

      2. Of course even with that on top of the things being ridiculously overpriced here, it’s not remotely comparable with the situation for so many women in India, so sorry for the ranty derail and YAY ARUNACHALAM MURUGANANTHAM!!!

        Pads were an actual percentage of my monthly expenditures, even when I was living in Mumbai, with its ridiculously overinflated costs of living, and was able to buy them in bulk. It was fucking ridiculous.

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