The Blood is The Life 13-04-2012

[miss_s_b]

• A Highly Intelligent Woman Speaks Out « The Practical Free Spirit
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• BBC News - Wind farms 'not major bird mincers'
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• I can no longer remain silent
  I have the biggest amount of love for this post
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• Wollstonecraft by Airship Ambassador — Kickstarter
  This? This is fabulous.
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Comments

[ginasketch]

I can really relate to the first link.

In the past year, though most people have been really lovely, I've met with hostility for being assertive or explaining that I have a disability and that means "no, I can't come into work today."


For starters, smart women often work very hard to fit in. We blend. We spend a lot of time listening to other people talk. We don’t always put ourselves forward, even when we have expertise or insight about a certain topic. We are not as likely to offer or even form opinions, since we are supposed to be nice and agreeable. We are not as likely to argue. We deliberately choose topics of conversation that don’t show off our intelligence, partly because being an intelligent woman is somewhat fraught in our society and partly because if we want to have a real conversation instead of expound, it often works better to choose a topic in which intelligence doesn’t matter as much. We do much of this unconsciously because it tends to get us better social results, ie people like us more.

I find myself doing these things less and less now as they don't get me anywhere. I suppose I could argue that people thinking that I'm not nice and agreeable would not get me anywhere too- but would I want to be around those type of people?

By being myself, I made some friends for life at work.

On the other hand, this rubbish still has a bit of a grasp on me. My (male) mentor said very positive things about me with regards to my work and intelligence but I'm afraid to mention them as I always think people will think of me as arrogant.

Why can't I just be proud of my achievements for once? Instead my brain takes out all my failures instead and caresses them. :P

[miss_s_b]

It's the same with everything for us: if you say nothing and are nice, you lose out, but if you say something you lose out too because being assertive makes (some) men uncomfortable.

They have actually done studies into this with the whole thing about women getting less pay rises than men "because they don't speak up" and found that women who DO speak up are more often than not seen as cocky bitches and treated worse, but especially by FEMALE employers, whereas men who speak up are assertive and motivated and get HUGE payrises. Gotta love how the kyriarchy fucks with the heads of those few women who do manage to succeed, so that they see the rest of us as threats...

[ginasketch]

Yeah I got asked why I "didn't speak up" about the fact that I didn't get to work on exhibition planning on my traineeship. Uh...I did...but was quickly shushed or told "that's impossible." Also, last time I stuck up for myself (the disability thing) I was called "aggressive."

I was honest about everything in my exit interview, and now the new trainee *is* actually learning some exhibition planning, so I'm glad my suggestions were finally taken into account, even if it was too late for me.

found that women who DO speak up are more often than not seen as cocky bitches and treated worse, but especially by FEMALE employers.

I've always been treated BETTER by female employers. Maybe it's the profession I'm in, but they've always been very encouraging towards me (probably because they've experienced the same thing themselves.)

[innerbrat]

I'm afraid I couldn't read the first post, the label 'intelligent' winds me up so fiercely.

[ginasketch]

Why? (Genuinely curious)

[innerbrat]

Primarily because it posits a single linear scale on which human abilities lie, which is compounded by the prevailing assumption that it represents a'thing' which can be objectively measured. Many people also seem to talk about it like it's innate and unchangeable, and that some people are just 'stupid'.

My gut reaction to it is exacerbated by all the extreme implications has been drawn from this idea (mostly social Darwinism) although I'll acknowledge that the interpretation of an idea is not the idea.

But when it comes down to it, the idea that some people are 'intelligent' and other people are 'just stupid' is so contrary to my own worldview that I no longer involve myself in discussions around that assumption.

[ginasketch]

I see. That makes sense.

I don't have a problem with the word myself, as I've noticed people don't use it very often for women, or they assume that we are emotional but not logical (don't get me started on how infuriating it is for people to see emotion as "bad" or that "emotional intelligence" doesn't exist.)

[bagpuss]

Its interesting that the thing that irritated me about the first link (not that is isn't making a fair point about women not being recognised for their abilities) was that it seemed to imply that women can be "intelligent" too but not in science but more subjective things. I suspect this is my problem rather than the person who wrote the post but it is upsetting as a person working in what are traditionally considered male dominated fields

[ginasketch]

Hm. I didn't read it that way- I know a lot more women are pushed into the humanities precisely because those things are seen by society as "soft" (grr). Conversely, I wonder if a lot of men are pushed into sciences because it's what is expected of them.

I wish gender stereotyping didn't exist.


Finally, our society privileges the sciences over the humanities and the arts, and factual knowledge over both raw intelligence (which is more about speed and ability to learn, understand, and synthesize) and emotional/social intelligence. And yet, women are less likely to go into the sciences, less likely to offer up their knowledge in conversation, and more likely to be encouraged to focus on emotional intelligence.

What I got from this is she is pointing out the double standard- women are encouraged to steer away from science because they're often seen by society as "emotional."

The daft thing is, everyone is a combination of logical and emotional thinking, though the way some people scream about it you'd think they'd been told to set fire to themselves for admitting it.

[bagpuss]

I am certain there is a double standard and many women are encouraged to do "soft" things not of course these things are necessarily any less good or rewarding but they tend to carry less prestige with them of course

Everyone of course sits somewhere on a variety of different scales, the peaks of those scales might be different from different genders but there are certainly people of all genders at every point on these

People do like the scream about these things. At a work dinner one of my colleagues make a statement about men and women being fundamentally different and the timing meant I really didn't think it was the time to ask for clarification to find out what they meant by that which on one level is a shame as it would be good to know

Always nice to see another scientist though it feels like I mostly do project management these days

[ginasketch]

Also, fellow scientist here! *waves*

[lizw]

The Trek post - I always assumed that they landed on V by mistake for VI because Reliant warps in near the outer perimeter of the system, so they aren't counting 1-2-3-4-5-6, but x...8-7-6 (where x is whatever number of planets the Ceti Alpha system had originally - I don't recall whether canon tells us). Am I missing something?

(Of course, that still requires them either not to notice that the location of the planet they're about to beam down to doesn't match VI's charted orbit, or V to somehow have wandered into that orbit; and the scanners not to pick up that the number of planets is wrong and/or that there's a new asteroid belt like gominokouhai points out. I just don't think it's the numbering that's the problem.)