Not Feminism 101

"Value Batteries, not Lightbulbs"
https://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/issue-5/page-63-2/
https://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/issue-5/page-64-2/

(By which I mean, I agree :))

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I’ve never thought of this series in a feminist light before (mostly because it’s still heavily populated with dudes), but have you seen the first series of Connections by James Burke? The entire ten episodes are like a video essay of why the “great men” view of the history of invention is bunk. The two series after that just look at the connections between different inventions and are fun but don’t have the same drive as the first series.

The idea that it’s not just one person in their study, laboratory, garage, or basement is still radical.

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No, I haven’t! I played the Connections computer game and saw some of the 90s stuff but was generally unaware of the first series.

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It’s also a great excuse for Burke to drink a G&T on camera every time anything links back to India and the Raj. :wink:

But more seriously, yes, it’s excellent stuff and still underappreciated.
Did you get the book in the US? It still surfaces in second-hand bookshops over here.

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I don’t know about the US, not living there and all :slight_smile:, but I’ve never seen it in Canada. Around the time it would have been first broadcast we still had chains like WH Smith, so it’s possible it’s around. I’d love to read it.

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Hush my mouth, and I apologise. :slight_smile:

(Not to dig at the US, wherever one lives should be a source of some pride and usually, identity. Though in the UK, I’m not so sure anymore, either)

ETA: Hellfire! Is this a new edition?!

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Well put. It’s not whatever one’s been mistaken for; it’s the erasure of what and who one is that will rankle. See Belgian/French, Belgian/Dutch, Dutch/German, Dutch/Danish, Austrian/German, Australian/New Zealander, Ukrainian/Russian.

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If i remember correctly, it was available as a gift for donating during the funding drives on PBS, our odd public/private TV network that aired Connections.

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You literally just described my life.

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It’s also shockingly easy to start out as a woman in tech, and get sidelined. First step is getting assigned the task of documentation, which is surprisingly easy. All you have to do is make the mistake of using complete sentences in an email.

Second step is getting good at technical writing. Time passes. Third step is getting laid off. (Perhaps the whole company got bought out, and the acquiring company already had a tech writer.) Fourth step is hunting for a new job when literally all recent experience is documentation/technical writing.

Fifth step may be QA or QC or tech writing. Sixth step though is the kicker, being interviewed by a kid young enough to be your son, who has no freaking idea that there was ever a world without a computer science degree, and wonders why you don’t have one.

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Wasn’t this a TV series, too? I think it was on PBS.

EDIT: Yes, it was! I think I watched a few episodes with my dad:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(TV_series)

Don’t get it mixed up with the Canuck organised crime documentarty, though!

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Stories like this make me so mad. My last place of work had so many women engineers when I started, and you could have done a case study in the sheer variety of ways women got pushed out in the ~10 months I was there. When I left, only dudes remained. (But as an engineering manager said, even straight white guys can have a diversity of opinion, which is what really matters! LKdfasdfLKJH;faklfn;dfslndkk)

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If you managed to keep from laughing at him, you are a better person than I.

I probably would have said something about how the Vatucan debates re: angels dancing on the heads of pins were almost all white dudes, and it would have gone over his head.

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I apparently find it really hard to stop my face arranging into a ‘do you really believe that?!’ Incredulity expression in such situations, but when the idiots they that kind of idiot outranks you, either response can itself be career-affecting. Grrr.

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I couldn’t help myself :joy: Fortunately I already had exit plans worked out by that point.

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I’ve heard that, too. I used to be astounded that guys would say it right in front of me. Like, hi guys I’m right here, and I can hear you.

But then they would say the thing that made me feel even worse. We don’t mean you, you’re, like, one of the guys.

Um, no. And also no no no no no no no no

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Yeah, it’s Buzzfeed, and it’s Twitter…but it’s funny!

https://www.buzzfeed.com/hannahjewell/hilarious-tweets-about-being-a-woman?utm_term=.kh4b77aBzb&ref=mobile_share#.ej3kvv7GAk

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Here’s a trick I learned in teacher’s college:

Put the top of your tongue against your upper palate, right behind your top front teeth, and press. That will help freeze your lower face and give you a serious expression. Nod along, making it look like you are listening carefully.

It’s how teachers get through student antics without cracking up.

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Oh, nice! Must give that a try.

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