More evidence that gender diversity is not only an issue of fairness but also an issue of efficacy.
Building on studies in other sectors that have shown diverse teams produce better results, new research into surgery show gender diverse teams in operating theatres enhance patient recovery from operations & reduce complications.
The more balanced the team, the better the result - suggesting gender parity in the (health) workplace has clear benefits!
🆕 blog! “Book Review: The Doors of Opportunity”
★★★★★
Did you know that a Suffragette invented the UK's electrical plug? Dame Caroline Haslett was an electrical engineer who foresaw the way that electricity could be used to remove domestic drudgery from women's lives. There is a slim biography of her, written by her sister, which is sadly out of print. Luckily, the book is […]
Dame Caroline Haslett was an electrical engineer who foresaw the way that electricity could be used to remove domestic drudgery from women's lives. There is a slim biography of her, written by her sister, which is sadly out of print.
It is a curious book. It dwells on her faith as much as her technical prowess. Her waistline is the subject of wry amusement. There's also the (naturally) dated views of the day to contend with along with an odd segue into spiritualism.
And, of course, you'll see nothing much has changed in the last 100 years.
With the Women's Engineering Society safely launched, Caroline found that she had two recurring types of problem with which to contend. The first was to deal with the difficulties that arose at factory floor level from the intrusion of women into what had been traditionally a masculine preserve, difficulties which she herself had area to admirably tackled by the enlightened management of the Cochran Boiler Company.
The second, and probably the more important task, was dealing with the problem posed by the steadily increasing number of highly trained women competing with men for managerial posts in the world of engineering. She was not interested in the problems merely for their own sake, but in the people behind the problems and in the whole field of industrial relationships.
It isn't enough to merely launch a product or service. It takes years to embed knowledge, experience, and desire into users. Haslett's power was recognising that the advantages of electricity weren't self-evident. It took a sustained campaign of education to get the public to understand the why and how of a new invention.
If you want to understand how the development of domestic electricity use in the UK happened, this is an interesting and useful book. It perfectly demonstrates how one headstrong person can influence the world.
It is a stunning look at how feminism directly influenced industrial policy.
Caroline herself wrote a book - "Problems Have No Sex" - which is completely unavailable as far as I can see. If any readers know where I can obtain a copy, please leave a comment.
Young men aren’t being forced to follow toxic masculine icons like Tate and Peterson, they’re choosing to consume their content over healthy masculine icons.
Models for healthy masculinity exist. They’re unpopular, because young men don’t want to be healthy. They are choosing to be toxic.
So let’s all remember who is at fault and who needs to change here - it’s the menfolk, not everyone else. Stay fabulous. Get a cat.
@Slyence I think like most tribalism it's insecure people looking for easy answers in a complex scary world, but we really should be giving tools to the next generation to navigate things without needing blinding simplifications.
@Neblib@Slyence Few yrs I caught my younger bro watching Dan Bilzerian on Insta. My brother was already ~30yo, too. Wtf?
I poked him, "what is this content doing for you? Is this aspirational?" Because it's super vapid and I knew Dan was a prime example of toxic masculinity. He kinda mumbled "he's got a nice house and cars..."
My brother was always the more "macho" b/t the two of us. He's a literal Chad (Nominative Determinism at work). But still, it was weird seeing him watch that garbage.
This trend of all gender bathrooms with multiple stalls. I don’t get it. Honestly it feels anti-trans to me or maybe it’s just anti-women. But I have fewer bathrooms I can comfortably use if the one on the floor I’m on is all genders.
Any one want to discuss? I’m not trying to to attack anyone I just really can’t fathom who we’re serving here. As a woman I need a space that I can retreat to. Not bc I was taught to be afraid but bc I’m a survivor of domestic violence.
@ttpphd thanks so much for responding. I don't have any hangups abt what body parts a woman was born with, my attitude is welcoming to any transwoman. It's funny bc I've def been in all gender bathrms that even had urinals and felt completely fine, but in restaurants and event spaces that were designed to have just one enormous bathroom, like the inside equivalent of the portapotty line. It's the crappy college bathrooms remade into all-gender just by charging the signs that weird me out.
@ttpphd I've been non-confirming all my life, but for me that just means I'm a feminist, not that I'm not a woman. Starts with the whole "women are people too" from the 70s, my mom was all about it. Femininity is a social construct, but womanhood is a vibe.
We are still failing across the world to get more women into leadership roles in politics which itself stems for a failure to get more women into political careers.
Whether you believe women do politics differently, or whether you see this as an issue of gender representation, to be two decades into the new millennia & for this to still be the case tells us that patriarchy & male domination remain issues that has yet to be disposed of
@lewiscowles1986@ChrisMayLA6 So you don’t think constant death threats is a problem? Or continually being misquoted by a hostile media that doesn't care what lies it tells as long as it sells copy and/or clickbait? Being asked to deal with tens of thousands of constituents’ problems in addition to your responsibilities in Westminster? Having to commute long distances, or maintain two residences, and cope with anti-social hours. Overcrowded office space, no childcare, no proper HR… etc.
@KimSJ@ChrisMayLA6
No; I wish more of them got the comeuppance they deserve. For every innocent one, there are 10 more cockroaches, ruining the nation for "status", "power"
There is good news. In deciding not to do the work, and post such a whiny response, I think the country is better without.
"Feminist theory secures rather than challenges, Hemmings shows in one of the book's most compelling arguments, a variety of postfeminist, gender-equality discourses that are central to the reproduction of global power relations." https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1057/fr.2011.41
"The experience of horror that causes a temporary break in Western feminist subject/object relations may precipitate a straightforward judgment of the other-subject or practices concerned as unacceptable. In other words, the experience of horror may well mark the stopping point of the deferral of the limit discussed above. This is very clearly the case in some responses to FGC [Female Genital Cutting], in which the horror itself is repeated textually as evidence in several ways."
"Brooks’ somewhat throwaway disgust (the article does not otherwise discuss FGC) marks the limit of Western feminist subjectivity in two ways, in fact. It marks a limit in order to produce clear judgment, and it also frames her more open argument about religious veiling as one that can be taken seriously as nonrelativist. Her affective certainty here allows her reader to consider her less absolute position elsewhere."
so i hope the lesson learned from the closing of Women in Tech and Women Who Code is that corporate America and empire feminism ain't gonna save us, right?
#feminism was meant to dismantle the white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy not to develop software that would empower the white supremacist, misogynist, capitalist oligarchy into further dehumanizing and oppressing the rest of us.
the non-profit industrial complex needs to die for truly liberatory & cooperative communities to rise.
#WomenWhoCode is shutting down for funding shortfalls. I can’t think of a more dire canary in the Silicon Valley coal mine than this. We can expect a social fascist turn in the IT industry from here out as the remaining jobs not taken by AI are rationed out to men only.
$4m is chump change for infotech capitalists, a few bucks tossed to a pan handler. That they won’t fund #WWC anymore isn’t an economic decision, but palpably a policy priority toward a hard social rightward turn.
@jesseplusplus I’m certainly far on the outside looking up at the nosebleed heights of the infotech socioeconomic pyramid. So I hope you’re right. But WWC did good for some of us far outside of Silicon Valley. I was one such, though couldn’t take it anywhere myself. For that alone they get my salute.
@Shufei thank you for sharing your perspective, it's super helpful to hear their impact outside of my own bubble and how they helped you. I was in Silicon Valley, so it felt a little different there, but I can definitely see how their initiatives could help in a lot of places much less saturated by tech.
"Seventy percent of those killed by Israel’s war in Gaza are women and children. In the end, Western feminism will not be betrayed by the patriarchy nor by Trump or Rishi Sunak or any of the interchangeable right-wing men in power, rather it will be undone by its own foot soldiers: women who have been silent over the worst crimes our generation has witnessed in our lifetime"
Fatima Bhutto #Feminism#Gaza#Women
"Western feminism" is not a thing. The feminism that doesn't criticise the role of capitalism in exploitation is a minority between feminists, but it's very represented in politics and media, just like capitalism is represented while critics of capitalism are popular.
Hey ihr Schlauen und Liebhaberïnnen des feministischen Kampfs: Hat wer von euch je ein Fotografie oder ein gemaltes Bild von Linda Malnati gesehen? #feminism#history@histodons
Prisons put survivors of sexual assault under the power of rapists who seek out jobs in prisons. Prisons account for almost as many sexual assaults as happen in the rest of the population outside prison, with most of those committed or enabled by prison officials. One prison down...now to abolish the rest
If you're someone who volunteers and works to help survivors or prevent sexual assault, abolishing prisons will dramatically reduce sexual assault.
@JoscelynTransient of course, the jokes about SA in men's prisons have been around for a long time, and the general theme was "it's funny because they kind of deserve it."
Also, of course one would assume that it's going on in women's prisons, but I think, as another person commented, we are led to assume the rule of law protects prisoners. Of course it doesn't, though. This is the rug under which we sweep our problems.
I'm glad the AP could investigate and have some impact.
@sillyCoelophysis
There was actually a federal investigation into the state of sexual assault in federal prisons back under the Obama administration and it found almost as many sexual assaults in prison as there are outside prison, both in men's and women's prisons. This led to laws and executive orders that were supposed to change things....and instead it's only gotten worse while some contractors got paid to do jack squat.
If you or anyone else hasn't seen it, I definitely suggest watching Pop Culture Detective's video essay "Sexual Assault of Men Played for Laughs" on this very topic. Turning sexual assault in prison into a punchline just further extends rape culture and undermines the ability of survivors to get support and care. https://youtu.be/uc6QxD2_yQw?si=6Z7Vk1r7QSXchf7J