I think every occupation is a choice, as long it IS a choice.

So,

(1) If it IS choice, anyone who makes comments of pity, compassion, and similar such is being rather unfair (in the city I came from, for instance, where sex work is 'illegal' the sex workers in it by choice feel more degraded by saviour 'policemen' who are rapists, and foreign journalists who make films on them with mournful background music on what a pitiful life they lead.

(2) However, this is also an industry where many are forced into things, girls trafficked, minors raped etc. That's what should be opposed. How? Again the instance from my city. The community of sex workers at that red light district have long waged an unsuccessful battle to make sex work legalised. They have an organisation that have led countless marches asking for their rights, their kids' rights etc. Why? they want the rights to form a trade union, prevent crime, prevent the trafficking of minors, go to court, enforce the use of condoms and so on.


Right now, they exist. Most by choice. But 'saved' occasionally by mournful media stories, rapist policemen, no laws, no rules, abusive and STD infected customers and the occassional filmmaker who wants to make films with snapshots from their sad lives and goes on to win an award...

This is a very small story from back home and i am interested in learning more of other (similar/diff) stories, relating or not to this specific blogger...

Cannot resist writing in a bit more on my (rather limited) understanding of the feminist agenda.


i think, and I am geenralising, one wave of feminism (when the suffrage things were on) were asking for equal rights. that wave still ignored other differentials (race, class, sexuality etc). Later feminists tooks these up and then in some way perhaps high culture was privileged.

Then, the British feminists from the Birminhgam Centre did a huge lot (read Angela McRobbie here I think...) in rescuing this feminism that workled from a moral high ground. To what end? Yes, there's something called agency, choice, etc. if a houseiwve watches a soap opera and finds it pleasurable, so be it, that's fine.

Look at this instance: Tania Modleski (one wave of feminist) found soaps to be anti feminist derogatory. Ien Ang, Janice Radway etc (her contemporaries) said there was resistance readings etc of the genre and one could make it all too simplistic.

I think, we have now (successfully) reached a stage where we can say

(1) the equal things as men agenda is flawed because it stills sets men as the norm and the standard
(2) that enjoying pop culture, porn, etc is not a simplistic case of women being gullible and accepting stereptypical messages
(3) 'Feminine' and 'soft' stuff, inside the walls of the home are as much public, as a debate in the city centre.

Sorry this is all very media studies informed, and I dont do gender, but that;s what I thought from this piece and of course the insights from Stressed/Sneaks below completely inspired me :-)

Hi there,

Interesting, I didn't find it odd actually. I was raised by a dad and a family which set/still sets its standards of 'success' and 'achievement' all in the realm of the professional success. I was told (brainwashed) from the age of 2 to aspire first for topping the class, then for topping whatever co curriculars I did, from singign to dancing to debate, then to be prefect, then head girl, then the best uni, best uni in the world and even now I hear these things. A cousin of mine, who was an excellent student right till her PhD, chose to go for a lesser job to let her husband lead his work life the way he wished and she wanted to give herself completely tp her baby son. Now, everyone in my family considers this a 'lesser' choice and said 'she really wasted her talents etc'. Feminists in my family rave and rant about how her choice was a conditioned one, i.e not her own choice really etc...

Now, that I find robbing women of their agency. I think what the head teacher wants to say here is that it's Ok to make apparently lesser choices. In saying that I think she is also rescuing a lot of the stuff women do (like housework, raising kids) out of the dumps.

I dont know, I was a student of a feminist who was against censorship, pro porn and pro all kinds of things that would shock many feminists.

I should also add I am an unschooled feminist. My mum belongs to the old school of feminists with smatterings of classism, and even sexism mixed in it in some way..(she'd kill me if she read this)

On your other point, if boys should be taught the same, yes of course, absolutely. I only hope the headteacher of a boys school does that.

I am eating crisps dipped in cheese pretending it's dinner for I am too lazy to go out and buy dinner.

I am so lazy, I sit at my comp and look (yes, 'look') at a pack of cookies and dont want to move my bum to go get them and would rather pretend I'm not hungry.

Eska, now enough is enough. Give me a sausage roll. Period.

======= Date Modified 14 Nov 2009 21:15:01 =======
IS it just me getting tired at the end of yet another fieldwork day or did three people on this thread just join the forum today to advertise links?



An interesrting story is clearly visibnle on the thread seeking some course info in Delhi. Ha. But that's different!


Edit arrgh didn't note it was from 2 yrs ago and had merely been resurrected by an advertiser! But alas, am still looking for that elusive cream!

If I smell fish, I do smell a lot of them on this thread.

This is a UK forum....

ALso just curious, if you dont know what the course is then how come you want admission into it?

PS: a google search shows a lot of stuff on this accounting course..

v v tired (peak of fieldwork and teaching and projects) so few words

Blanket rule for me in life: if you have something (talent, inherited money, funding money, experience, whatever), if you have something, and think you're better than others who don't have it, you have a real attitude problem. It needs to be sorted or pointed out to you in your face.

In this case, person concerned has funding money and thinks those who havent got it are crap. Same thing, they are idiots.

As far as the thing abt not having stuf while grwoing up goes, I fully agree. But would also add, there are many who didn't grow up with financial difficulties but had traumatic childhood/adolescnence for other reasons (medical, social, familial etc etc). finances are one part of it.

I spent my teenage being a kid who could buy what she wanted. Doesn't change the fact that my teenage yrs saw me handling a pretty hellish family life. To be honest, for a while I even thought those who do well, with lovely homes intact, get it easy, and I am richer by experience i.e. I felt the same way as Maria's colleague feels.

That's when someone pointed out to me that if you got something, and others dont, or other way round, it doesnt make them/you better or worse.

My two pence.

Welcome aboard and congratulations Misspacey! :)

Hi all,

In the peak middle of fieldwork so somehow typing a couple words :)

Any ideas for a nice something to take to somebody's place when visitng for the first time, where there's going to be 4 teenage girls in the place, all around 13-14 yrs old? Perhaps nothing individual but something people can share? Mind you, not all the girls live there, just one does and her friends...

(Nice, quick, and not too expensive please!)

Depends. On the job in question, on the department in question...

If it's a post that needs you to primarily teach and mark, in a uni that doesnt enter its dept into the RAE/REF, then I guess teaching experience is needed. Publications don't hurt ever, of course, that's the mark of a researcher!!

If it's a RAE oriented dept where most people are academic and/or policy relevant researchers cum stars, and the dept is devoid of UGs, and has only MSc and PhDs (like the one I am in) research is strongly valued. Of course, teaching exp matters, for everyone does teaching, icnluding the stars, but yes publications make you stand out.

Again, depends on your field. In the sciences, which have a different publication and journal culture from the social sciences, the number of publications is a different debate than with the arts or SS.

In all, neither teaching exp nor pub exp ever hurts in an academic job. But, if you take 0 teaching and 2 pubs into a teaching oriented post-doc in a UG led dept, or if you carry tons of teaching and no major conferences/papers into a research oriented ept with a research oriented post, then it's a problem, IMO.