Posts by Jackie Clark
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I'm not going to argue with you Emma. Suffice to say that I really enjoyed your blog, I hope you write more soon, and I hope your daughter is over her spewy bug!
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but i have somehow found posting comments here often leaves me with knots in my tummy. it's so wierd and i haven't been able to understand my own reaction. it would be nice if someone could make sense of my very strange mind for me... any psychologists out there?
Anjum, I would suspect you aren't the only one for whom that happens. In fact I know you aren't! There's a truckload of erudite, intellectual scary bastards in these parts. People who pick apart arguments for a living, if you will. I often write long responses to things here, and then just think "bugger it, I'll just look like a simpleton" so I don't end up posting anything. Pathetic, really, since like you, I'm a relatively confident public speaker, and I'm not overly concerned about what people think about me. I would suggest you feel the fear.......and do it anyway. (Apologies to Erica Jong).
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I'm really not a cringey person. But I'm really honestly not sure how much my 'perspective' would be different with a schlong.
I would suggest that your perspective would be very different, Emma. Boys and girls experience life differently to each other. Educationalists and child psychologists acknowledge this. Their brains work differently, their bodies work differently, their emotions work differently. There's a number of reasons for the differences. Most of them are about social constructs, sure. And some are hard wired into the cerebral cortex from conception. Some, like hearing, are physiological - believe it or not, at about three, the inner ear in some boys is behind the rest of his physical development, so that that child is effectively "deaf" for that period of time. That affects speech development hugely. There is huge amounts of research to show that men and women are not different in the most important areas such as cognition, leadership, and personality, and that may be so. But the gender definition of a child starts when they're born, and no matter how much you strive as a parent to right gender inequity there are people all through a child's life who reinforce it. How you are reflected in others' eyes is incredibly important when you are young, hopefully less so when you are older, but it's still there. We live in a society that constructs mechanisms for various reasons. Many of those constructs are around gender. And it's also a cultural thing, obviously. All of this adds up to part of who you are, of who you become. As does the parenting you recieve, the experiences you have in your life. All of it is who we are. As one wise soul once said - we are the sum of all our parts, or was it we are the sum of all our experiences? Not sure, but either way, part of who you are is the lucky dip which is your gender at birth.
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See now, this is why more women need to post.
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You mean like David H?
Well, yes, him too. Take it as a compliment, Emma. I like women writers in general. Don't cringe away, ever, from your female perspective. Some of us find it interesting because, well, we are women. And I like the way that women tell stories. Sometimes, it's as simple as that. Don't mind me though, I'm just an old Unifem, and old habits die hard.
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I should have said, which was my original intent, that I wanted you to do a blog here. Not least because your perspective is quite close to my own (being purely selfish, here).
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Thanks Emma - great first bloggy thing. See, that's why I like reading women bloggers. I like the personal, and the intimate, and the funny. I think you covered all of that beautifully, and with great dignity. No tokenism here - just very interesting people blogging.
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Oh and Danielle because she tells funny stories.
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So, if we set up rules of discourse in such a way that they look fair - everyone gets to be tough - but in effect a large number of people feel that they can't participate, then we have an effective exclusion of those people.
I've used this quote, Deborah, but I agree with everything you've said in that post. I had a long post all written out, but you know what? It just comes back to what I said before. Women posting more is sorely needed here. To that end, I would nominate Robyn and Heather and Anjum to have a go at being PA bloggers.
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Oh I like that. Where do you get police radio scanners from? That'd liven the show up, for sure.