Aaaaack!
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Doā¦ do they still make Kathy? (eyelid twitches)
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Cathy ended in 2010 with the reveal of her pregnancy, featuring a little embryo thinking aack:
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Thinking āaackā in pink, no less.
That boilerplate pseudo-feminist tripe from her mother (such a feminist icon, that one /s) immediately segues to āI do know anythingās possibleā for women, because BABY!
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
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Aw, come on, thatās a bit harsh.
āMy entire goal with my submission package was to get my mother off my back. My goal was not to do a comic strip. It was to make Mom quit telling me I could do a comic strip.ā
One of Guisewiteās classmates at University of Michigan was Lawrence Kasdan. When Kasdanās movie The Big Chill (1983) opened, Guisewite devoted an entire week of Cathy strips to it, with Cathy and her co-workers enthusing over the film and seeing it repeatedly.
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Iām pretty sure one of my favorite all time comics is a Cathy strip, but I canāt locate it on the interwebs.
In the strip, a woman with a child is going through a grocery store. As she shops, another shopper (Cathy?) is saying how she would never let a child ride in the basket without be strapped in, and on and on with the child rearing shaming. The last panel has the other woman turning to the speaker and saying, āYes, I did all my best parenting before I became a parent, too.ā
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Just read an interesting piece: Why Are Americaās Most innovative Companies Still Stuck in 1950ās Suburbia?
Itās not really on-topic for this thread, except that it shows yet another example of how sexism (and of course racism, if you read the article) underpins our culture. Hereās an excerpt:
The focus on amenities for office staff was also a way to prevent them from organizing, particularly the legions of low-paid female employees needed to maximize profits. āThey were terrified that female clerical workers were going to unionize,ā Mozingo says, āIn the era before computing, companies ran on vast amounts of paper, and that paperwork was almost all done by women. That was one of the reasons they wanted to get out of downtownāif the secretaries unionized, theyād all be sunk.ā
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You know, I know a guy just like you, or at least, who Iāve seen have similar experiences. Heās a nice, friendly, attractive, successful person whoās very good at what he does. I serve on a charity committee with him and he just CANNOT get a word in edgewise with either the men or the women. I always find myself saying āI think Jimās trying to make a pointā¦ā No idea how this fits into the gender discussion, just wanted to add my 2 cents.
I routinely dominate conversations, to the point that I really try to be VERY mindful and even then sometimes get constructive criticism around the issue. And Iām a small-statured female. I see more gendered criticism in written reviews and comments, but maybe those people canāt get a word in around me either.
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I think Birmingham proper is starting to flourish again, mainly due to UABās campus, but all when I was growing up it was the biggest ghost town.
Montgomery, AL, too.
One of the stories not really told about the bus strike is that once it was done, the whole thing was rendered irrelevant because all the white people fled the downtown and stopped using public transportation. My mom talks about taking the bus all the time as a kid, but I never took a bus until I lived in New Orleans.
And yes, Mountain Brook was the whitest, most elite place in Birmingham for many years.
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Well, I think dominating conversations is a skill. Itās a skill we wish fewer people had. Itās a gendered issue for sure, but like most genedered issues, thatās a cultural fact not a biological one. PhDs in philosophy are pretty extremely gendered too (I meant this to be a random example of another thing with a heavy gender bias that obviously isnāt inherent, but the more I think of it, the more I think the skill to dominate a conversation and the skill to get a philosophy PhD might be the same).
For me, the gendering of it isnāt a big deal. I can still talk about it as a āmaleā speech domination even though my personal experience of it in my life-at-present is more often of women doing it. Being talked over seems like an experience that every woman I talk to has and that some men really donāt seem to have at all. For everything other than producing gametes I assume the variance within sexes is greater than the variance between them (you canāt even reliable predict the gamete thing on gender).
Sometimes I see people have a very strong allegiance to their gender and it kind of baffles me, particularly in men. Say something bad about men and all men feel attacked. I guess I just donāt feel that allegiance. Thereās no reason a man canāt use the strategies to disrupt conversational dominance (if we actually came up with any) and thereās not reason a woman canāt read about how conversational dominance affects people as part of understanding why itās worth the effort sheās putting in to stop.
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Phew! I got to the bottom of the thread. Thatās a lot of reading! But also an important topic - and one that requires nuance and sensitivity to really delve into.
Despite having lurked on the boingboing bbs for years, Iām usually pretty outspoken. Iāve had to be. Working in tech, especially in the years when I was young, meant that if I wasnāt assertive then Iād get ignored and/or talked down to. I canāt even count the number of sexist comments, situations, and meeting dynamics Iāve witnessed. I was often the only woman in the office, and either Iād be treated as āone of the guysā (and witness to really gross comments about other women) or the pet office coffee-fetcher. Iāve āparted waysā with employers after pointing out how sexist and demeaning the office environment was for women, instead of having the issue addressed in any way. So I learned not to say anything about toxic work environments. Iāve seen a woman more qualified and capable passed over for a promotion that went to a man who had years less experience because he was a mate in the menās office football team. So I learned that it doesnāt matter if youāre quiet and try to fit in, you will never be āone of the boysā that gets the promotions. Iām sick of it. So now I freelance because I am just tired of fighting to be heard, tired of being in a space that is uncomfortable and where I just donāt fit in because of my gender.
Even in my non-working life, in volunteer and charity groups, because Iām a woman who is assertive, Iām almost always the focus of abuse and difficulties even if Iām not the cause of conflict.
In gamingā¦ heh. donāt even get me started! Rape threats, doxxing, offline harassment and just general background every day sexism. I try not to be identifiably female in that world, but then I am erased as everyone assumes Iām a male (canāt tell you the number of times Iāve been called dude or bro). When people are surprised how many women game, I think there must be a lot of female gamers out there who are similarly āerasedā and thatās why people are so surprised.
Itās exhausting trying to communicate when you are a woman. Working out a way to get a man, whom you respect, to try to stop dominating a conversation is the least of it. Trying to get men you like and respect to see it, and to see it in their own behaviour, and then to do something about it -it should be easy, but sometimes thatās the hardest part.
I have no solutions, but I thought Iād share my own experiences.
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Thanks for delurking!!!
Your comment is so great Iām tempted to ask for the thread to close as this is a great summary.
Sadly we have come to little actual useful conclusions.
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Have no fear ā the programmer-mens will be around eventually to tell us when our communications have strayed into chat (which should be segregated into their chat application. which doesnāt exist yet.).
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You better get posting then as you are about 9,625 replies away from that happening!
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9624 now
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Agree. Iāve seen people learn it, and I learned it myself, on purpose. Lots of women have it, but youāre right, our culture gives men far more opportunities to learn and use the skill, and in general more approval for doing so.
Well, the category of men includes all men, so if you attack men you attack all men. Should someone not feel attacked when they are attacked? I feel attacked when people say that all religious people are [insert fake nonsense here] even though I know the things they are saying are true about many religions and religious individuals, just not me or mine. Where should one draw the line?
I believe the originator of a thread can close it? Not sure.
Thereās also this study result, which was a little scary, and corroborates what youāre saying:
The first rule of dude club is that you donāt talk about dude club.
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Which reminds me of this study: http://gender.stanford.edu/news/2014/why-does-john-get-stem-job-rather-jennifer
Whenever someone claims thereās no such thing as a āwage gapā, I pull that one up.
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I really feel the first step to addressing this kind of bias is for people to accept and acknowledge that it exists ā the data proves that it does. Then at least when these situations come up we can remember our biases, many of which are nearly unconscious and unintentional, and adapt for them a bit.
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I find that way too absolute. If someone says, āUgh, Iām so sick of men talking over me,ā then I think we can see that there is room in that statement for there to be men who donāt do so and for there to be women who do so. Just like in the title of the thread, āHow can women disrupt male speech domination?ā Male speech domination is a real thing that a lot of women experience. That doesnāt mean that every man participates.
But another observation Iāve made being on both sides of the privileged and marginalized spectrum - and sometimes masquerading as privileged in discussions about marginalized groups - is that when white people talk about black people, or mentally ānormalā people talk about neuro-atypical or mentally ill people, or men talk about women, their observations are usually BS, but when it goes the other way the observations are a lot more objectively accurate. If you ask a hundred white people what they think of indigenous people youāll hear a lot of stupid shit. If you ask a hundred indigenous people what they think of white people youāll hear a much greater amount of fair criticism.
Sometimes people do make blanket statements and overgeneralizations, but I think itās up to us whether we take that as an excuse to back out of the conversation or whether we continue to engage and listen to their point of view. I donāt think itās worth trying to turn the conversation into a conversation about whether their approach is the correct one. I havenāt seen that work yet, and Iāve seen it tried a lot of times.
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