Just a little (link) love: hay-bear edition
September 19, 2017
The Atlantic on why women are supposedly terrible to each other in the workplace. I think a huge part of this was described accurately by Kelly Sue DeConnick in one of her SDCC talks. Women aren’t stupid – they don’t want to be associated with a weaker or subordinate group and they’ve internalized the prevailing misogyny early on so they tend to respond by trying to set themselves apart from other women. Obviously if you know that women are considered less than, why would you do anything but highlight how you’re not like them? Women can learn to shed that patriarchal gullshit and understand the power we can have, though and I can always spot when a women has or hasn’t shed those attitudes.
The manufacturer of Epi-Pens continues to behave horribly. This time they’re called out by the FDA.
Have you talked to kids about money? Emily had the “bank holds your money” talk with Little Bit
Are you emotionally prepared for a bear market?
I don’t usually listen to radio show clips but this one piqued my curiousity. The UK shop John Lewis decided they weren’t going to label clothing with gender anymore, which I think is great because how about you let us decide what’s right for ourselves, and this caller expresses concerns about “bowing to political correctness” with about exactly the kind of reasoning you’d expect from that response. James O’Brien rather deftly gets the caller to actually think about what he’s whinging about for a second.
Marshmallows aren’t likely to fix low-income kids’ real problems: “We demonstrated that expectations matter—a lot—in the marshmallow test, and that it’s not all about self-control. This shows that children’s decisions aren’t driven by inherent ability or inability, as Mischel and colleagues suggest. The behavior is driven by the forces of evidence and expectations.
…
We should not waste time and grant money trying to train self-control, nor should we commit to the implicit judgment behind these studies—that kids who fail to wait for the second marshmallow are inferior.”
BEAR
Having a bad day, here’s a bear playing with bale of hay pic.twitter.com/oMMhPxsGkK
— Nature is Amazing ? (@AMAZlNGNATURE) September 11, 2017
I do not worry about a bear market too much…except that I have a kid who works in the home construction business, and I do worry about market fluctuations regarding his job. In 2007-2008, my oldest son, and ALL ten of his closest friends lost their jobs in the construction business and had to move back in with their parents at home. I worry about job loss for others.
Similarly, I’m a little less worried about it for myself, and more worried about it for people who are going to be affected the most by the downturn.
Hm. Interesting article in the Atlantic, though it seems to go on a bit long and to indulge in some unhelpful polemic. My own experience in the workplace was that men can behave in exactly the same ways the author ascribes to women in the workplace: using a gender-inflected term like “bitchy” or “queen bee” changes neither the behavior nor the human beings engaging the behavior.
My best mentors were all men. Not that women deliberately tried to block me; just that few of them offered much useful guidance or contacts. Editors at Arizona Highways, the Arizona Republic, and Phoenix Magazine were generous in their support and career advice.
At one point — this was back in the day, when women were just coming into their own in business and industry — my little business was very young and I was looking to expand it. I was invited to join a group of women entrepreneurs. Oddly, I found the the networking opportunities there almost useless and wondered why. Was it that their businesses had little to do with mine or that they were just witches…or what?
Right about that time, someone advised me never to focus primarily on women as networking sources. Because, this person said, it’s a rare woman who’s in enough of a position of power or authority to actually help you. If she is, the suggestion went, she’s focused on helping herself…not some other woman. Instead, the advice continued, seek friends, networking opportunities, and mentors among men — they had more to offer.
Was that horrifying little insight true? Well…in my experience, by and large yes. Would it generalize beyond journalism or beyond academia? I do not know. It certainly was dead true in the academy. And women journalists at my level were out for themselves — the devil take the hindmost. Men, at least some of them, were likely to be “set” and could afford to help an underling up the ladder.
I hope things have changed.
Funny about Money recently posted…Spraying
I certainly hope things have changed at least a little across the board.