It's not about the shoes dammit
One of my favourite bloggers drdrA is finally back from holidays in Europe and posted an excellent comment on the recent somewhat silly science bimbo/shoe discussion in wordpress/blogspot space. As usual she totally nails it.
You see- the struggle I’m in daily in my own life and career is not about appearances, and it is not about symbolism or femininity- and it is not about who I am as a person, my likes and dislikes etc. It is a struggle to be heard and taken seriously for my ideas, plain and simple.And she constinues with what I find most annoying in the interaction with men, not only in science but in most aspects of life. And she puts it so much better than I could ever do.
It is about not having to repeat the same reasonable idea 20 or 30 times and have it laughed off by a group of colleagues for two or three YEARS, and then having a man mention it once and have it roundly applauded and implementedOr you can tell a great joke or make a funny comment and all you get is silence. And then some dude says exactly the same and it's hilarious.
Yup, because, apparently, only men have a lisence to be funny. Women are nice and cute. Even when they're not.
ReplyDeleteforskning.no must've published that when they saw my post!!1!!!11!
ReplyDeleteVery nice post- thanks! If I had a nickel for every time this happens (having a reasonable idea completely ignored), I'd be able to quit my day job.
ReplyDeleteYou know though, one thing that I didn't mention is that fortunately- I also have some really, totally, fantastically awesome male collaborators who think I walk on water and put me be in charge... They give me the strength and the courage to repeat the same reasonable idea to that other audience over and over again.
Hey, drdrA, thanks for passing by.
ReplyDeleteOf course, there are awsome guys, meh guys and horrible guys and ditto women.
But sometimes the ignoring women's ideas (or jokes for that matter) isn't a concious decision, and that's quite discouraging. If you're not even aware that you're being an arse, how can you change?
So true and so annoying.
ReplyDeleteSure, of course. And by the way- it is really hard to point out- in a way that doesn't make a colleague extremely defensive- that they are being an arse. Its difficult to do this when they are aware of it, it's even more difficult when they are completely unaware of it!
ReplyDeleteTrue again, and this is a good theme for another post. Go write it; you do it ways better than I do!
ReplyDeleteI don't really have anything profound to add, but I just wanted to say that I love the new header photo.
ReplyDeleteThanks Cath, me too!
ReplyDelete