1. I find it really weird when I read about myself as being part of a dust-up or controversial conversation of some kind when I had no idea that I was participating in (or starting) some sort of controversy.
2. I find it really fucking irritating that when Woman A disagrees with Woman B, Woman B feels comfortable characterizing that completely legitimate disagreement as "hatred" and being anti-feminist. Part of what feminism allows women to do is to have their own ideas that might not be identical to other people's. Further, feminism means that women have the authority to have perspectives that don't have to match with other women's perspectives and to talk about those things in public. Expressing disagreement or anger isn't anti-feminist. So I'm really over the public hand-wringing about how women who disagree or express anger (against things that other women are for- oh no!) aren't in solidarity with feminism. Not only is that intellectually weak, it really shows a failure to engage with people who disagree with one's own position.
3. I live in a house. I have one kitten in a window-seat and another kitten next to me on the couch. All kittens are intrigued by the sounds of rain outside and the gorgeous views of this rain that are available to them. My house rules.
4. Ouch. Moving is physically and emotionally exhausting. Don't do it if you don't have to. More on the move in another post - I'm too traumatized right now.
12 years ago
10 comments:
1. Chortle. I wondered how you would react to being a "dustup" in DD's blog! (I'd like to see him address the issue of spousal hires at a CC, or the management issue when two people already on the same faculty get married or divorced. He did not recognize that issue.) I'll just observe that it was really an eye-opener for me when I came to a CC where there is total pay equity. No discretionary raises means no reward for actual high performers, but also none for those whose skills exist only in the mind of the patriarchy.
2. Great comment. ;-)
3. No guy in his right mind will comment on this one, but we do know that guys resort to name-calling when losing an argument on the facts.
4. Enjoy!
I feel like the numbering of Dr. P's commenting may be off because after reading his comment it became apparent to me that I had numbered the post 1, 3,4,5 and I couldn't let that stand. Anyway, whatever.
#1: I read this, and mentally went over your last few posts, and thought, "Someone is taking issue with Dr. Crazy's packing style? How odd."
#3: Have you yet acquired a mini-kitten for the nook?
Lol at Notorious!
Congrats for #3!! Now just relax!
Have cats discovered the joys of racing up/down stairs and tripping you? That's great fun for them. Not to mention all the boxes involved in moving.
Congrats all 'round. You're significance is noted.
Darn. Yes, my numbering should now be 1, (null), 2, and 3. Notorious, you broke me up with that comment!
I don't get it. Who thinks you are an anti-feminist hatebag?
Do you have the MFJ for the NOMFJ, yet?
Oooh. A dustup! Do I get to be part of it, or was my post too early in the sequence? :)
I didn't link to your post (and the many, many other posts and comments about this, by the way) because I wanted to have my vent, offer my perspective, and be done with it.
I think that was wrong, and I apologize, for I should have more clearly articulated from where my annoyance and anger came.
My single gripe from your post was that you seem to have one couple in your department who are total asses and have given you a negative experience of spousal hires, and it seems to me like they get trotted out as an example of why spousal hiring is bad. I wanted to contradict your n=1 with my n=1. I used the word "hate" in that context only (that you seem to hate that couple). I never claimed anyone was anti-feminist for holding an anti-spousal hire perspective. I never talked about feminism and looking through my comments, I don't think my commenters did either (so maybe at this point you're referring to someone else's post? I don't know). Otherwise, my anger was largely with commenters on your and other posts, as well as commenters on the original post you referred to at the Chronicle.
I have read and re-read Dr. Crazy's post and some of the posts in reaction to her post, and I just don't get the level of defensiveness and hostility.
Dr. Crazy's main point, as I understand it, was that spousal hires are not a comprehensive solution to gender inequities in the academic workplace, and that in fact (in her words) they may "ha[ve] the potential at an institution like mine to reinforce an inequitable division of labor in the home and to exacerbate [an] inequitable division of labor in the workplace" because "the patriarchal constraints of marriage and child-rearing can be reinforced by the practice of having both spouses employed in the same department." That is, some families' dynamics have the potential to affect the workplace much more than others when both adults are in the same workplace. Given that the practice of heterosexuality is a more or less hierarchical arrangement at this point in history, having a married couple in a department might well have some interesting gendered effects on the workings of that department. I thought Dr. Crazy made some interesting points based on her observations, which she was careful to foreground as just one example.
Are people in spousal hire marriages the only ones who are permitted to write about them? Are they certain that they are aware of all of the ways their relationship and/or family life does or does not affect the working life of their departments? It seems to me that it would be useful to hear about how such arrangements are seen from the outside by co-workers, too.
Finally, I don't see where "hate" comes into Dr. Crazy's post at all. She shares some resentment, perhaps, but I don't see "hate" when she writes, "And, since research isn't a high priority at our institution, one of them doesn't actually do any research post-tenure, and instead cruises along at the associate level getting paid a full-time, tenured salary, while performing all of the duties of a stay-at-home parent. Who makes up for the work that this person doesn't do? A lot of times that falls to women colleagues without children." And it seems like she may have a good reason to resent that!
Historiann.com
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