On Int'l Women's Day I was in a zoom meeting with a group of men and one female graduate student who was advancing to candidacy to get her MFA. Four men took turns telling her how she should think about her screenplay, how she should approach it, what she should cut out of the screenplay, and how using it as a subtle homage to "Thelma and Louise" was not being original. I was the only female professor there - and had already thoroughly discussed the script with her one-on-one. After the meeting I wrote her and reiterated that it is important to listen and consider other people's views, but ultimately make sure to stay true to one's vision. She wrote back "Oh, I intend to." Hahahahahah
OMG I love all of your newsletters, but this one was especially spectacular. I forwarded it to 16 women, some of whom already subscribe.
I was in the car with my teenage nephew on International Women's Day. The radio station we were listening to said, "AT 5PM, we'll play one hour of music by women." He turns to me and says, 'You only get one hour on women's day." When it hit 5PM, we put that station back on. After two songs by women, they played 3 songs by men. My nephew says, "Well, you make 80 cents on the dollar to men, so you only get 20% of the women's music hour."
Also, NBC Sports Chicago shared a graphic with a bunch of women who play for Chicago teams, except at least two of them don't play for Chicago teams any more. If you can't put in a tiny bit of effort to make sure it's accurate, just skip it.
Thank you for this very important and timely post. I'm in a hotel in Eastern Oregon this morning, which is an old hot springs hotel with soaking tubs. I have suggestions for the decorators - like grey walls and green and red carpets should not be a thing. Especially at this price. I have my 2nd job interview, and I will be on campus or with the hiring committee from 7:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. I have a teaching demo and a research presentation to give, I am nervous, and I'm so grateful I slept through the night. This post put me in the most appropriate mood. I promise that when I am in charge I will change the schedule of interviews to be 1/2 a day followed by an afternoon of playing with dogs. The Jenny Lewis song was excellent. When I was 33 I got a puppy and I had a van. I have only briefly been without puppies since then. Thanks, Lyz. Puppy and a truck will be my mantra today.
M&Ms come in the colors of LADY CANDIES this month, and the bags are printed upside down, for women who FLIP THE SCRIPT. I mean really, what more could women want?
Though to be fair, the palette - green, purple, and brown - is real spooky.
At some point, I took my bag of potato chips and just dumped it into the milkshake and started calling it “rich people frostys and fries.” I believe I said, “This is the fanciest Wendy’s I’ve ever been to.”
Officially the best line of 2023 this far. When are we getting swag with your sayings? 🤞🏻
We got a 4 line email from the head of my workplace, at 4:53 PM on IWD, that basically said "we want to acknowledge that women are a thing that exists. And sometimes they do things, which is cool. People should not be so mean to them (but we are obviously not proposing anything WE could actually do to make their lives easier/more equal)." Cool story, bro.
This reminds me of how my workplace decided to honor social workers, because March is also National Social Worker's Month. (They haven't mentioned Women's History Month, because the board is full of old white dudes. It never crossed their minds.) But at the beginning of the month, we got an email. It excitedly proclaimed that since March is National Social Worker's Month, they would like a SOCIAL WORKER to participate in the PIE IN THE FACE CONTEST for PIE DAY! What an honor! We are important enough to have one of our ilk included in the group of people that our entire work force can vote on in a penny war to see who can get a pie in the face!
Shockingly, none of us volunteered and the non-social workers in our department bullied the CPS supervisor into doing it. Now my only chance to participate is to buy a slice of pie on pie day, to celebrate myself as a social worker. And the organization will make a donation on behalf of the social workers with the money raised from the penny war and pie sale. I cannot wait to see what they choose.
I refuse to acknowledge Women's History Month because it just feels like one of those performative social media things that we're now required to do to prove how much we're paying attention to what "matters" even, as you say, as the lives of women are on fire, and not in a good way. I also, admittedly, have that Groucho Marx problem, where I don't want to be part of any club that wants me as a member. But nearly every woman I know made some sort of note of it on day one, talked about her mom or something, said Yay, women! We're so great!, so I felt like an asshole.
Also, I would really like to know why they took the tallow out of the French fry recipe at McDonald's back in the day, because before that evil day their fries dipped in their vanilla milkshakes were *chef's kiss*. Now they're just potatoes fried in a vat with, like, soybean oil or something and on the rare occasion that I'm driving somewhere and trying to relive that experience I am SAD on top of being sad about, y'know, everything else about being female in this country.
Reading this, I’m reminded that the Toronto Raptors released a women’s history month video this year where they asked the players: why do women run the world?
A couple of players said it’s because women give birth. The Raptors thought it was a good idea to release this video.
And this is why we can’t have nice things (like equal rights)
My office (a very small federal agency) always invites a prominent woman in government to talk about her career. It’s not so much insulting as just not that interesting. It’s not like Kamala Harris. It’s like the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Congressional Relations somewhere. And it’s not someone with an especially exciting path. At this point it’s women whose career looks similar to mine but they are more important and get paid more.
On International Women's Day, I was grocery shopping in a supermarket when "American Woman" by The Guess Who started blaring on the speakers. If you are not familiar with it, Google the lyrics--some of the most misogynistic rock lyrics ever. Bravo, Safeway! lol
On Int'l Women's Day I was in a zoom meeting with a group of men and one female graduate student who was advancing to candidacy to get her MFA. Four men took turns telling her how she should think about her screenplay, how she should approach it, what she should cut out of the screenplay, and how using it as a subtle homage to "Thelma and Louise" was not being original. I was the only female professor there - and had already thoroughly discussed the script with her one-on-one. After the meeting I wrote her and reiterated that it is important to listen and consider other people's views, but ultimately make sure to stay true to one's vision. She wrote back "Oh, I intend to." Hahahahahah
OMG I love all of your newsletters, but this one was especially spectacular. I forwarded it to 16 women, some of whom already subscribe.
I was in the car with my teenage nephew on International Women's Day. The radio station we were listening to said, "AT 5PM, we'll play one hour of music by women." He turns to me and says, 'You only get one hour on women's day." When it hit 5PM, we put that station back on. After two songs by women, they played 3 songs by men. My nephew says, "Well, you make 80 cents on the dollar to men, so you only get 20% of the women's music hour."
Also, NBC Sports Chicago shared a graphic with a bunch of women who play for Chicago teams, except at least two of them don't play for Chicago teams any more. If you can't put in a tiny bit of effort to make sure it's accurate, just skip it.
Thank you for this very important and timely post. I'm in a hotel in Eastern Oregon this morning, which is an old hot springs hotel with soaking tubs. I have suggestions for the decorators - like grey walls and green and red carpets should not be a thing. Especially at this price. I have my 2nd job interview, and I will be on campus or with the hiring committee from 7:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. I have a teaching demo and a research presentation to give, I am nervous, and I'm so grateful I slept through the night. This post put me in the most appropriate mood. I promise that when I am in charge I will change the schedule of interviews to be 1/2 a day followed by an afternoon of playing with dogs. The Jenny Lewis song was excellent. When I was 33 I got a puppy and I had a van. I have only briefly been without puppies since then. Thanks, Lyz. Puppy and a truck will be my mantra today.
M&Ms come in the colors of LADY CANDIES this month, and the bags are printed upside down, for women who FLIP THE SCRIPT. I mean really, what more could women want?
Though to be fair, the palette - green, purple, and brown - is real spooky.
At some point, I took my bag of potato chips and just dumped it into the milkshake and started calling it “rich people frostys and fries.” I believe I said, “This is the fanciest Wendy’s I’ve ever been to.”
Officially the best line of 2023 this far. When are we getting swag with your sayings? 🤞🏻
He doesn't know anyone with a library card. He doesn't know anyone with a library card. He doesn't know anyone with a library card.
Area man realizing that when Lyz talked about going to the Aviary it was not the place full of birds…
So…you're sayin' I was correct about boozy milkshakes.
Excellent news!
Have a good weekend.
Back to work for me. Damned meetings.
If you have a month named after you, that’s all you get. And you’d better be grateful, damn it.
My sentiments exactly re: Women's History Month.
Rock on!!
We got a 4 line email from the head of my workplace, at 4:53 PM on IWD, that basically said "we want to acknowledge that women are a thing that exists. And sometimes they do things, which is cool. People should not be so mean to them (but we are obviously not proposing anything WE could actually do to make their lives easier/more equal)." Cool story, bro.
This reminds me of how my workplace decided to honor social workers, because March is also National Social Worker's Month. (They haven't mentioned Women's History Month, because the board is full of old white dudes. It never crossed their minds.) But at the beginning of the month, we got an email. It excitedly proclaimed that since March is National Social Worker's Month, they would like a SOCIAL WORKER to participate in the PIE IN THE FACE CONTEST for PIE DAY! What an honor! We are important enough to have one of our ilk included in the group of people that our entire work force can vote on in a penny war to see who can get a pie in the face!
Shockingly, none of us volunteered and the non-social workers in our department bullied the CPS supervisor into doing it. Now my only chance to participate is to buy a slice of pie on pie day, to celebrate myself as a social worker. And the organization will make a donation on behalf of the social workers with the money raised from the penny war and pie sale. I cannot wait to see what they choose.
I refuse to acknowledge Women's History Month because it just feels like one of those performative social media things that we're now required to do to prove how much we're paying attention to what "matters" even, as you say, as the lives of women are on fire, and not in a good way. I also, admittedly, have that Groucho Marx problem, where I don't want to be part of any club that wants me as a member. But nearly every woman I know made some sort of note of it on day one, talked about her mom or something, said Yay, women! We're so great!, so I felt like an asshole.
Also, I would really like to know why they took the tallow out of the French fry recipe at McDonald's back in the day, because before that evil day their fries dipped in their vanilla milkshakes were *chef's kiss*. Now they're just potatoes fried in a vat with, like, soybean oil or something and on the rare occasion that I'm driving somewhere and trying to relive that experience I am SAD on top of being sad about, y'know, everything else about being female in this country.
Reading this, I’m reminded that the Toronto Raptors released a women’s history month video this year where they asked the players: why do women run the world?
A couple of players said it’s because women give birth. The Raptors thought it was a good idea to release this video.
And this is why we can’t have nice things (like equal rights)
My office (a very small federal agency) always invites a prominent woman in government to talk about her career. It’s not so much insulting as just not that interesting. It’s not like Kamala Harris. It’s like the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Congressional Relations somewhere. And it’s not someone with an especially exciting path. At this point it’s women whose career looks similar to mine but they are more important and get paid more.
On International Women's Day, I was grocery shopping in a supermarket when "American Woman" by The Guess Who started blaring on the speakers. If you are not familiar with it, Google the lyrics--some of the most misogynistic rock lyrics ever. Bravo, Safeway! lol