Pam’s Comments (group member since Dec 29, 2016)

Pam’s comments from the Our Shared Shelf group.

Ross wrote: "For Example, how men women have been named as abusers in the cases coming to light since Weinstein. There are many powerful Women none seem to indulge themselves like men have.."

Just because it rains in Scotland, doesn't mean that Egypt doesn't receive rain either. It might be more documented, but it still happens elsewhere.

Yes, we are seeing a flush of women FINALLY getting the opportunity to be taken seriously about their claims of sexual misconduct. But to say women don't conduct sexual misconduct against men - even high powered women- is ludicrous.

What we are seeing not only is it accepted that women are being raped or abused by men, but it's something that is finally being persecuted.

I don't think we're at that point for men to feel the same way.

1) Millions of men in the United States have been victims of rape.
As of 1998, 2.78 million men in the U.S. had been victims of attempted or completed rape. About 3% of American men—or 1 in 33—have experienced an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime. 1 out of every 10 rape victims are male.
https://www.rainn.org/statistics/vict...

2) But among men reporting other forms of sexual victimization, 68.6% reported female perpetrators,” the paper reports, while among men reporting being made to penetrate, “the form of nonconsensual sex that men are much more likely to experience in their lifetime ... 79.2% of victimized men reported female perpetrators.”https://www.theatlantic.com/science/a...

3)Here are some specific stories of male survivors of rape that have been completed by women. https://thoughtcatalog.com/lorenzo-je...

4) And it's not just rape. Men are victims of domestic abuse. "According to the CDC, one in four adult men in the U.S. will become a victim of domestic violence during his lifetime. That’s upwards of three million male domestic violence victims every year, or one man in America abused by an intimate or domestic partner every 37.8 seconds." https://www.huffingtonpost.com/bari-z...

I ask that you read these and stop imagining women as these pristine chalices. And men aren't complete neanderthals who only want sex and war. We are all capable of great evil and injustice. We are all capable of great triumphs and grace.

Katie wrote: "I know she finished it, but it will be interesting to see how she would have continued it. ."

Gotcha :) Thanks for reiterating.

Yes. Cruelty and corruption are not limited by gender. Therefore Women very much could do that

As for the argument "as oppressed individuals we would know better"... I'm a middle child. As I was picked on by older sister, so did I do it to the younger. Even though I knew it would hurt. I still did it.

I also cite:
- The Aunties from Handmaids Tale
- Madams and brothel owners who exploit underage girls for the sex industry. The Mayflower Madam, Lulu White, or the ones who keep the sex industry alive and kicking in Thailand.
- Madame LaLaurie- Female Slave owner who was utterly barbaric with her charges
- Women who poke holes in condoms or purchase pre-peed on pregnancy tests so they can trap a baby daddy. See craigslist for details on how you can purchase your very own pee stick.
- Heather Bresch, CEO of Mylan, the makers of the EpiPen. Epipens are used to help treat life threatening allergies and were priced at $124, she approved the decision that would raise the price to $609 a pop.
- The 'Hyena of Auschwitz’ Irma Grese was the warden of the female prisoners in this Nazi concentration camp and was tried for more than 30K female deaths. See also Ilse Koch
- Queen Mary 1- Aka Bloody Mary who was so devoted to a religion that she burned and executed those of an opposite faith during what was called the Marian Persecutions
- Imelda Marcos, widow of the Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who had amassed a collection of over 1,200 shoes while her people starved. She is the Marie Antoinette of the modern age.

Being a woman does not mean you have an extra ounce of compassion. Compassion and empathy are traits that are learned and honed and strengthened. So to are cruelty and selfishness.

Cruelty and corruption are not limited by gender.

Katie wrote: we may get to see how Atwood would have finished the novel after all. ."

She did finish the novel. It's not as if she died in the writing process and had a ghost writer finish. It's nitpicking, I know, but Atwood finished the novel the way she wanted it finished. As readers, it's up to us to interpret why she did it this way and what it means.

Prachi wrote: "The main purpose of my posting this question was to be proven wrong that there are such gender based stereotypes when it comes to reading and what we all read or tend to read."

It's a widely held belief that women read more fiction than men.

And it appears to be backed up by the current American based facts. Meerder (And others?- yes please!) is getting us additional numbers.

But does this mean it's a stereotype?

And are we assigning an emotion or judgment to these numbers?
Non-Fiction = bad, Fiction = Good? And if we are, how did we gain those judgments in the first place?

Winston wrote: "more rabbit holes! :D Yay!

Exactly. We have numbers, but we don't have answers.

OSS as the capability of hosting a poll... if the mods are ok... what could / should we ask?

Try here: A Mighty Girl: Books 9-12
https://www.amightygirl.com/books?age...

Ines wrote: This is based on the assumption that women are responsible for men's emotional fu..."

That might not be what he means.

Hi Jaclyn, I'll reply in a separate note to you regarding your request.

But I do want to touch on publicly what Yang is saying. Your comment is a bit harsh considering that it follows Jaclyn's request for help. It almost comes off as blaming the victim. I'm sure you did not mean it that way though. Could you explain what do you mean by your comment Yang wrote: "Hi Tanya, men have no need to abuse women emotionally if they were emotionally fulfilled themselves."

So to me, the friend is Moira was hailed as being some sort of hero for being able to escape the life of a handmaid. Offred thinks very highly of her and thinks about her when she has rebellious thoughts about escaping or leaving etc.

But Attwood has Moria recaptured as a Jezebel. And as a Jezebel Moria is seen as complacent by Offred who is starting to get a bit more rebellious herself. Moira gets all the booze and smokes she wants. She gets to live as a prostitute and it's one big party in comparison to the work Offred has to do. But she is still stuck as a cog in the world just like Offred. Her big heroics and escape didn't bring her to anything but a different form of imprisonment that Offreds.

And the point of that is to hearken back to one of the themes of the novel which is confinement vs freedom. What does freedom really mean? What is confinement?

"Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations"

Or

"Freedom, like everything else, is relative. "

Attwood is comparing complacency with imprisonment. What made Moira such a firebrand ended. She no longer "fought" the system, she was broken and complacent with her place as a prostitute figuring that life outside was not worth it.

And I would argue that this is what makes Offred stronger or more rebellious than Moira. While she may have been a handmaid she still didn't let the bastards get her down and possibly achieved freedom that Moira didn't. Moira believed that it was enough to drink booze and do drugs, where as Offred knew it was her thoughts and her private passions that truly manifested itself as freedom.

Winston wrote: Strictly speaking, global literacy rates for women are lower than men, a difference of 7% from Wikipedia so, I'm not sure she's speaking from anything scientific. But I'm down to be corrected from whatever source"

Well yeah, but that's the global literacy rate. Which until we feminists finish our jobs, is still dramatically in favor of men reading. Reading, as we notice during book giveaways or during discussions, is still a luxury. Though this is changing. (UN literacy work: https://en.unesco.org/themes/literacy...)

While it's true globally women are not reading anything as much as men, I think we can focus the point to first or second world nations in which the option to read fiction or non fiction is available to all demographics.

I like Pew's survey taken in 2014 which polled Americans over the age of 18 on their reading habits. Of those who have read a book in the last year, 82% were women to 69% male. But the numbers follow suit that with more education the more books respondents have read. This also follows the pattern that those with more education happen to have more resources devoted to book reading be it either financial wealth or time to do so. Though admittidly this survey doesn't answer what kinda of books the demographics read so much as do they read and on what platform do they read it on. http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/01/16...

Ooh! And then there is this link of NPR's Market Watch which pulled data from America's National Endowment for the Arts. "Men are more likely to read nonfiction books than fiction, while the opposite holds true for women: 55% of women read fiction in 2012, and 48% read nonfiction, according to an update of a previous NEA report released in 2013. Young adults are more likely to read fiction than nonfiction books, whereas the oldest Americans (aged 75 and older) are more likely to read nonfiction books, the NEA found."

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/fic...

What role does gender play on our book choices?
Does the fact that girls mature earlier than boys play a part in this? I.e. girls tend to learn to talk / read faster than boys do so they are already hooked on reading for fun (fiction) than boys who tend to read more about sports statistics? (my own conjunction)
Does the need for story vs fact plan a part in these numbers?
Does the age of the reader change the preference? I.e. young adults read more fiction than non-fiction. Are the young adult readers 50% female and 50% male, or are the numbers skewed to the point where all the young adults are women and the older 30+ are all males?
Does culture play a part in this?

"The decline in fiction reading last year occurred mostly among white Americans, including women and men of various educational backgrounds; rates held steady among non-white and Hispanic groups, the report found.

Mmmmm data. So many fun rabbit holes to explore.

Anyone got anything non-states related? I would love to see if the numbers change.

Thank you. I appreciate your insights and helping me to process.

And kudos to all the mothers or mothers-to-be out there. Hormones, body changes, a little person depending and growing inside of you.... I could not do it.

Great topic. Thanks for adding Meerder.

Keith wrote: "We Sioux have always believed that a person is free to be what he or she wants to be."."
I want to also touch on this as the concept of two spirit people, or individuals who are not male or female but have both spirits inside of them. For a long time this was seen by non-natives as strictly meaning they were gay. But perhaps as our own culture expands it's definitions we may have a more fluid understanding of this notion.
https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com...

OK. I need help from our mamas in the club.

I need advice.

History / Backstory:
I am a child free woman in a male dominated industry. In my building, but in a different department, is another woman. Which is great! That department is hiring more women, they are all super supportive of her, and it's nice to have a female who wants kids in on the conversations we have in the work place.

Because she works in another department we do not interact that much. But we do see each other in our Ladies Who Lunch dates (a once a month lunchin for the 5 women in the building of 50+) and also in the women's bathroom. We're not BFF's but we are friendly.

I mention the bathroom because I was walked in on her when she found out she had lost her first pregnancy when it was in the 1st trimester. No reason as to why it occurred, her doctor couldn't give her any reasons. Which was especially hard for her logical mind. I'm not an emotional person and I know she knows my stance on children though perhaps not my reasons for them, so it was a bit awkward. But we spoke about it for upwards to 30 minutes and there was a lot of hugging - again, super aware that touching was NOT one of my specialties.

Fastforward 6 months later and I'm in the parking lot in my car eating my lunch with the window down when she comes outside for a phone call to find out she is pregnant again. Given our previous interactions and how fraught this time was I didn't say anything until she felt comfortable announcing it. And that's something one does a) to their significant others first and b) second trimester at best.

She has since told me and let others know and is now happily in her second trimester. The difference is that because the first going awry she is painstakingly afraid. When we go out for our monthly lunchin she makes sure everything is clean eating. Anything that happens in our building she needs to be notified.

Which brings me to my request:
Recently my team and I have moved our product forward to the point where we are almost ready for launch. In an effort to look good for our Sponsor Open House I've scheduled our area to be painted. If our place looks good than the new design will really shine. Knowing this about my co-worker, I've made sure to get the paint that's as clean as possible and let her know that it was happening. We had a few cancellations so I've kept pushing the painting back.

Anywho... I had painter come in over the weekend. This morning (Tuesday) she zipped out of the building scowling at me. When I got to my computer, I had a few angry messages from her about how I was putting her child in jeopardy. etc.

Which... again.. I dropped the ball and forgot to tell her Friday we were painting that weekend. And I get it. Without having all the information presented during or a reason for her first miscarriage she is on high alert. She is frightened. I know I can come off as unfeeling and too analytical and that I don't truly understand this level of fear. In my mind, women have been giving birth for 1,000+ of years and we've turned out ok. I don't tell her this, of course, but I don't know how to convey the emotional support to her.

My question to all the moms.... how do I help her feel safe? How to I make it so she knows I am trying to help? That her concerns are valid. Do I tell her her concerns are valid or is that enabling her fear? The more I analyze the more I don't know where to go next.

Also PS: I know we have a lot of very amazing people on this site who have valid opinions. But I would prefer answers only from mothers right now. I need the mother brain first.

Great article too, btw. The more we know...

I'm curious though if this is just a general "female thing." As right now the "average age of a marathon runner is 36.5 for women" (Super Quick Google Search, http://fitnessfatale.com/blog/2011/03...)

In fencing, for example, unless you get to the top rated fencers, ladies in general are less aggressive and more defensive. There is still a ingrained block that says "Don't hit!"

Whereas the younger population who are growing up in a Wonder Woman world or where they can participate in youth sports are demonstrably more aggressive. (See Jane Hit: Why Girls Are Growing More Violent and What We Can Do About It

I'm curious if as these more aggressive girls age that they will increase their paces and not "play it smart" so to speak or if the trend remains.

Always a pleasure to talk with you too. I understand your points and I hope I don't make you feel that you're voice against quotas is wrong. Hardly true at all. You have lived with your experience and I have lived with mine. They weren't the same, but neither experiences cancel the other out.

Ill try to address your questions.

Keith wrote: If I may ask, do you feel this is the exception rather than the rule and that, essentially, most companies/organizations really can't be bothered to do this as they see no reason to do so? As you say, diversity for diversities sake is not necessarily a win for anyone. "

"This" being using quotas as a part of the solution instead of THE solution?

It comes down to change. We don't change because change is hard and it's foreign. And it opens up a whole new world of problems you have never encountered before. Which is why these things can fail. Companies are setting themselves up for failure if they think too small or too short-sided and reversely if they go too big too quickly.

- Tokenism. One person should never be the entire representation of their community. But if you only hire one person as a "trial" period to see how it goes you are putting undo pressure on that person to do more than everyone else around them (who have been there for years) but better than anyone ever. There is no room for mistakes

- Details. For example: when we brought in women into trades the work didn't stop. In fact in increased because we had to concern ourselves with toilets issues. Making sure that there actually was toilet papers stocked in the latrines. Sexual harassment training for managers and then for their teams. Another fun feature was that we had to figure out child care situations. Most of the women we hired were single parents and if their kid was sick or had problems they would need to leave to pick them up or stay home. Not too many fathers in the trades were single parents. Not only did HR have to address child care but also had to calm managers who thought women were either tardy for no excuse or were getting preferential treatment.

We kept pushing because we knew we needed to make it happen for the long term. But we had to quell a lot of complaints in the process.

- Communication with the current team. The threat of "someone is stealing my job" is real. This is the big one I'm seeing with the populist movements. Don't trust immigrants or refugees because if they aren't terrorists than they are going to take our jobs. If you introduce a lot of new people with new ideas it can cause tensions to skyrocket. Like two dogs circling each other in a kennel. Management has to be onboard because they set the tone. If there are not, then it becomes very much an "Us" vs "Them" situation. The team had to constantly come back and take the temperature of items.

This is never a --<*SNAP*>--- and it's all perfect. I was part of the trades project for 5 years and it still wasn't 100% before I moved on to a new position in another industry. These sort of details would normally stop the "experiment" as being too much work or too hard or not within scope and beyond the investment the company wanted to handle. So that's one factor as to why I think it's hard to manage quotas.

Did that answer your question or was I way off base and went down a random rabbit hole?

As to your experience, yeah. That happens. And it shouldn't be that way at all. I would then have to wonder what else was behind the idea that a man needed to be employed in that area.

Because in the end, even the most qualified will not be hired unless you work well with the team. Personality and soft skills count very high against theory or book knowledge. So perhaps it wasn't just that there was a quota, but maybe management didn't want to be the lone guy. OR maybe despite grades you had the je ne sais quoi that made your personality stand out more than your gender

Keith wrote: "I have only two issues with that:

How do you stop a quota system being abused?
Who is to say when such a scheme should can to an end?"

Therein lies the devil as they say. Because it comes to top management and HR then to manage the reasons for the quota. The quota itself should never ever be the only thing a company is doing to progress it's hiring practices or to enhance diversity.

Diversity for Diversity sake is not always a win. We're not yet at the point where people feel comfortable with the other person. Too many times, I think it does come down to people fearing that new people were coming to steal their jobs. (post-WW2 with women in the workforce had to leave cause the men were back, black labor in general, immigrants.etc etc etc,) So saying, hey, you don't have an lady working here is acknowledged but not acted upon unless you have a need.

A few things to be determined:
- Is there a current problem or issue that a diverse labor force can solve? For example, in a former life I worked in the trades. Historically, the number of people in carpentry, iron working, and steal were plummeting. As entryways into universities became easier and the idea of high paying jobs with a degree increased, the trade labor numbers decreased. In order to change our labor numbers we had to look at our labor pool. After some research we saw that it was typically only white men who were joining. So we started looking into the barriers that prevented women and poc men from joining and thus found out that it was more an institutional bias that stopped the teams from hiring these groups than lack of a good applicants.
- How many new people need to be added to make a sizeable change in the current problem? For my example above, we had our historic hey-dey numbers when the Trades were booming and we had the numbers from the number of jobs we had to turn down because we didn't have enough hands. Using those numbers we were able to establish the number of what we thought was necessary to turn things around
- And finally, can the diverse labor force be added without having to establish a rule? We're all adults. We all can see what's best for us and the company? Can we just point out that the best candidates should make it? Sometimes, yes. Historically speaking, no. Again, all the points in the earlier convo.

In the case above, asking wasn't working. We tried a few team meetings, we tried to work with management, providing them data as to why having a few poc or women join would help them survive. We would get a few early adopters. But we were still woefully short of the number we established.

PLUS, we didn't also just want a token staff member that everyone could point to and clap themselves on the back. And it would take those few people at least 3-5 years to move up the ranks - if they even wanted to. Again, it was our problem that drove us to looking at the numbers. We ended up having to establish the quota. Management was not hiring at the rate needed from their usual pool and weren't hiring from the group that would expand that pool.
- What else are you doing? Again, the quota should never ever be the only thing done.
We also reviewed hiring practices; looking to see where we placed job notices. We changed where those items were displayed. We survyed people in the community to figure out other groups did or did not apply to our positions. And if they did we looked as to why they weren't hired.

It was a big hands on deck process that ended up having to require a quota. But we had the data to make sure it wasn't going to be abused and also so that it would have a stopping point.

Additional historical context on the point 2) frailty of body and fragility of mind

http://www.marathonguide.com/history/...

Women were not allowed to run in Marathon until after 1972 for fear that long distance running would cause problems to their wombs and thus damage their ability to have children.

Again... running is a hobby. These were the sort of issues our culture had about what a woman could or could not do with her free time. I can only imagine how running math equations in my mind or typing this right now somehow also damages by baby making ability. (Sighhhhh)