sundries

[rm]

We're back from the shore and I'm back at my desk and very, very busy since we leave for Chicago on Wednesday night.

I received a very unclear bill from the hospital re: my kidney stone for about $85. If this is the only bill (still waiting for the ambulance thing to sort out), I will be very grateful, but since there are no details on it, I can't tell what's up.

Prop 8-related matters could wind up in front of the Supreme Court as early as this week. The very idea of equal marriage rights being so alarming as to cause the Prop 8 proponents to seek an emergency stay makes me queasy.

Judith Dunnington Peabody was from a world that, even now, still exists in New York City. She attended Miss Hewitt’s Classes (yes, yes, where I went so much later), the Ethel Walker School, and Bryn Mawr. She was a member of the Junior League (as I have also been, and that's a story for another time because it is unpleasant to tell). And "she 'was introduced to society,' ... at the Piping Rock Club, Locust Valley, N.Y., in 1947."

She was also did what was in 1985, unthinkable, volunteering to be a hands on care-giver to AIDS patients. Please read this Op-Ed, which is about her; her mother-in-law who was a part of the Civil Rights Movement; Prop 8; our confused, screwed up, scared nation; and Tony Kushner's Angels in America.

I've had a lot of cause lately to be all old, and cranky, and people were dying and you weren't here and you don't get it -- well, this might make it make some sense. And if you haven't read or seen Angels in America, you probably should.

Note, this piece does draw parallels between the Civil Rights Movement and issues related to civil rights for LGBT Americans. While these two struggles totally have things to say to each other, there are a lot of fundamental differences involved, and I think it's important to remember that to respect both African-American and LGBT history in the US.

SALGA was allowed into New York's India Day parade over the weekend. In recent years they've been banned and have protested the parade instead.

"Why girly jobs don't pay well" - I dunno? misogyny and "cute" headlines?

I said it on Twitter last night, but I still think it's clever as hell: True Blood is so over the top it's starting to feel like Baz Luhrmann does opera about vampires.

Speaking of Twitter: it's slightly weird when celebrities/creators I follow and had no idea knew each other start tweeting at each other about making social plans with each other. That is all. Actually, there's an extra weird side bonus in one of those recent incidents, but it's a long story that won't quite make sense yet. Twitter, in short, is so weird. But hey, as long as Russell Tovey keeps posting random pics of himself writing notes to Twitter while half naked, am I complaining? No I am not.

Hey, what's with this new Nikita show I keep seeing ads for? Is this another bad made-for-TV adaptation of the completely awesome film La Femme Nikita which is arguably, for what is essentially not a SF/F film at all, one of the most cyberpunk films ever made? Cranky cranky.

Comments

[sethg]

From the “girly jobs” article: Many traits that contribute to women’s success in finding a male partner don’t pay off in the labor market – and vice versa.

...because women and men have been brought up to expect that they will be heterosexually married, and that the majority of their household income will come from the husband’s job, right? And prevailing wages in the job market follow that expectation even if some individuals don’t want to.

[5251962.livejournal.com]

Exactly this.

And this line made my blood boil:
We need to figure out how to honor girly values while earning manly pay.

I just kept thinking through the whole thing- "Why on earth are they using "girly" and "manly" like this?" All that seems to do in my eyes is continue gender-typing- which leads to this sort of crap in the first place.

[xo-kizzy-xo.livejournal.com]

Bingo.

My husband's sisters are right in line with this. They are college graduates and were steered into traditional "female" occupations such as nursing or teaching because it was expected that they would marry well and would not have to work after having children. And that's what exactly happened.

[adelheid-p.livejournal.com]

My personal experience is an exception. I wouldn't have my husband had I not been the one to initiate conversation and decide to take the relationship further. He's a smart guy but geeky and oblivious in someways which makes him even more endearing to me. Anyway I have also done better than he has career wise. I think he's happy where he is, though. He values me and my decisions and has been supportive of me in my career. He is so different from his parents and siblings that, if he didn't have similar genetic traits, I'd say he was an alien child. LOL! Both of his sisters went into medical/caretaker type positions. His brother is an architect on Long Island in NY.
I have an adult daughter and for the early part of her life we cared for her great-grandfather so I didn't actually start working in the field until almost ten years after I graduated from college. Working in IT isn't easy for a woman. It's very much a man's world and I have learned to be tough and challenge things I know are wrong. Even so, I've chosen to work in academia and currently work for a woman centered university.
Still, I agree that the work the women choose to do is frequently undervalued.