Jezebel 
Enter your username and password.
New York, 5:35 AM
Fri Dec 4
68 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip your editors:
Editor-in-Chief:
Anna Holmes
| Twitter
Deputy Editor:
Dodai Stewart
| Twitter
Senior Contributing Editor:
Tracie Egan
| Twitter
Contributing Editors:
Anna North
| Twitter
Sadie Stein
| Twitter
Reporter:
Irin Carmon
| Twitter
Editorial Assistant:
Margaret Hartmann
| Twitter
Contributors:
Rich Juzwiak
Email | Twitter
Latoya Peterson
Email
Jenna Sauers
Lizzie Skurnick
Interns:
Katy Kelleher
Twitter
Weekends/Commenter Moderator:
Hortense
| Twitter
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
12/02/09
Also I love that mammograms are classified as "prevention". Detecting something that already exists is not preventing it from existing in the first place. Please see above keyboard-mashing.
12/02/09
12/02/09
12/03/09
12/03/09
12/02/09
Complaining is not virtuous, I realize. In fact, thanks to the corporate breast cancer mascot — the plucky, pinkified Breast Cancer Survivor (TM) who’s popularized the insane idea that women embrace the disease as an opportunity for personal growth — there is nothing in this world so unpleasant as a breast cancer sufferer who
– isn’t grateful
– doesn’t feel lucky
– won’t suffer nobly in silence
– thinks all those pious pink volunterrorists are deluded
– believes that the pseudo-concerned Racers-for-the-Cure luxuriate at her expense in a false sense of meaningless "philanthropy"
– is hopping mad over the expectation that she pretend she still has tits
– is even hopping-madder over the expectation that she shut the fuck up
I’m even hopping madder that I find myself capitulating. "So how’re you doing?" people ask me, and I almost always answer that I’m doing "great." Because it would seem so ungracious to answer any other way. I mean, since after all I’m not dead and wouldn’t it be greedy and ungrateful of me to expect more than that?
[blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com]
12/02/09
My mom has breast cancer, and I will do whatever she wants to support her, which is mostly to not always be talking about breast cancer. Unfortunately many of her friends and co-workers, women in her age group, have also been diagnosed. I know some of them constantly pester her to join their "pink teams" and do walks and runs and wear tee shirts and things my mother can't stand. Neither of us have ever been big "joiners" and being pressured into feeling solidarity with these other women seems ridiculous if you just don't WANT to. Everyone's cancer is different.
12/02/09
please, please, please PM me if you ever need someone to talk to who has been through plucky kick ass mom fighting through breast cancer while also fighting through breast cancer band wagon bullshit. i didn't really know anyone who had been through a similar experience and i had a really hard time working through it the first few months. as in did not get out of bed or go to class for a couple weeks kind of hard time. i wish i would've had someone to talk to then, so if you need someone, i will step up to that plate even if i'm a scary anonymous internet stalker. :)
12/02/09
12/03/09
And I got so very, very tired of being told and telling others that I was grateful for the time we had. I was, but... for fuck's sake, the most scarily intelligent person I'd ever known had tumors in his brain that were slowly eroding his mental capacity. Yeah, we had time, but it wasn't exactly quality time. If love and positive thinking could save everyone, I wouldn't have had to say goodbye to my father. He was 65. The whole cult of cancer survivors annoys the hell out of me.
The Lance Armstrong Foundation calls my entire family survivors - of cancer. How about survivors of hell? How about... how about I take a deep breath and stop threadjacking?
12/02/09
Meanwhile, my son suffered 1st and 2nd degree burns. The closest burn center to our big metropolitan area is 2.5 HOURS away. Their follow up clinic is 1.5 hours the opposite way. We have to go there every 3 weeks. The clinic is always packed because not only it is the only one in the city, it only opens 2 days a week. The waiting area is a reception hallway with 8 seats. It is crammed with crying babies, people standing up and in wheelchairs, and people with really bad burns talking about how they got their injuries (my 11 year old REALLY didn't want to hear those stories, he was already scared as it was). Last Monday we had to wait 4 hours to see the only physician's assistant available.
I guess burns are not as glamorous as pink ribbons and boobs.
12/02/09
But I absolutely agree. My grandmother and aunt both went through breast cancer. Cancer is scary, no matter what. But honestly, having pink ribbons shoved in my face every day is starting to give me "PETA effect", where I'm resistant to working for the cause because I am so annoyed by their efforts, and feel condescended to as a woman. This, I recognize, is totally irrational and inappropriate. But using a disease to spike sales, and ignoring some of the other very real harms that women face on a daily basis, really gets to me.
12/02/09
In all seriousness though, I do think that all the emotions are getting in the way of rational thought here.
a) we are talking about proposed GUIDELINES. that means if your doctor thinks its appropriate for you to be tested, it will in all likelihood be covered.
b) There is a lot of evidence to show that these guidelines are reasonable and that the drawbacks of regular mammograms prior to 50 probably outweighs the benefits.
12/02/09
The difference is, the priority given by the mainstream media and politicians to those issues.
12/02/09
12/02/09
Okay, that made me laugh.
10/23/09
10/25/09
10/25/09
And do something else?
Like, the dishes? #marcusbuckingham
10/23/09
I'm currently pregnant and constantly searching for challenging assignments at work only nobody will give them to me. (This is not a change from times when I am not pregnant, I should note.)
FFS, with my first pregnancy I worked full time, went to grad school full time, and tried to keep the house clean. I CAN multitask. Why won't anyone believe me? #marcusbuckingham
10/23/09
They have to be implying that this is due to maternity leave. Even though maternity leave is usually only about, what, 3 months? And most women can't afford to take off more time even if they wanted to.
That hardly seems like enough time for that kind of wage gap to still exist if that's what it's supposedly based on. And I think it's telling that we think that taking time off for motherhood somehow means you shouldn't get the same pay for the same work. It's not about different levels of experience, it's about literally not being paid the same when you have the same qualifications.
I do understand that someone who takes off 5 years of working in an office can't just come back in at a higher level than they left. But that's often not what happens. It's like women have to start over completely. As though motherhood doesn't count, and I find that odd. And it shows a very ingrained sexism and hierarchy of what we deem "important". We're all supposed to want to be mothers, but if we take the time to do it, we're financially screwed. Yay? #marcusbuckingham
10/23/09
Actually, I don't think you do.
I think you wish you did. #marcusbuckingham
10/23/09
And it makes you wonder, do those people really:
A) think that women should be solely responsible for bearing the costs of keeping the population of Amurricans replenished, even though it benefits us all (including women like me, who don't really want kids), or;
B) think that the American population should just come to an end, or thinks more lax immigration policies could keep our population growth steady, so that Americans don't have to do the actual reproducing.
C) Oh, and of course, I can't forget the near-eugenics argument-- only women who are wealthy enough to afford to take a financial and career hit should be reproducing anyway. Aka not poor single moms, or poor people. #marcusbuckingham
10/23/09
If the answer is maternity leave (probably among other things, including sexism), then would more men taking paternity leave level the gap? I can understand a company giving fewer raises to people who don't work for three months, so in my mind the solution would be for more men to take time off to raise children, have a more active role in parenting, etc. This is of course assuming that men would face the same negative career consequences for taking such leaves. #marcusbuckingham
10/23/09
I don't have any data about this, but it I still have lots of friends in rural areas who take a few years off (until the kids go to school), and my sense anecdotally is that taking 1-2 years off was pretty common even 5 years ago... if so, that could really be skewing both statistics and perceptions of older men in the workforce.
Again, no data here, so I'm genuinely curious. #marcusbuckingham
10/23/09
10/23/09
I nannied a few years ago and found this to be true for the most part now. Most women couldn't really afford to take more than that small allotted maternity leave without seriously effecting their income.
I think what bothers me is the assumption that motherhood doesn't involve any practical skills that can be applied to the professional work force. #marcusbuckingham
10/23/09
10/23/09
10/23/09
10/23/09
So, I'm thinking of instituting more hours in the day. #marcusbuckingham
10/23/09
She mostly did this because the demands of family and work had gotten to the point where it was seriously impacting her health. She went on a horrible cycle of sinus infection - bladder infection - sinus infection - bladder infection for about a year and a half, mostly stress-related. (I now realize that the early stages of menopause were causing issues too.) My dad and I helped out around the house, but we were busy too (with school and work) and couldn't keep things exactly the way she wanted them. The housekeeper was more than happy to dust just so. It cost about $60/month, which was a small price to pay in comparison to doctor's visits. (I realize this figure is probably way different than what many people would be paying now, in a different area.) #marcusbuckingham
10/23/09
I dunno, I'm trying to Zen out, maybe too much. ;) #marcusbuckingham
10/23/09
10/23/09
10/24/09
10/25/09
10/27/09
10/23/09
But this Buckingham has a point about delegation. Anybody notice how quick men are to delegate in an office environment? #marcusbuckingham
10/23/09
Men: not as good with the multi-tasking, but equally as distractible.
And, y'know, what if the presentation is just really boring? What if you'd have to be a dimwit to get something out of it? Then who's the fool - the person giving it rapt attention or the one making productive use of their time?
The Thanksgiving example pisses me off, though. It's probably true that not very many men plan their holiday chores during meetings. But I bet that's because men don't take on half as many holiday chores as women do. Gee, maybe it's the unequal work load at home that's the problem. #marcusbuckingham
10/23/09
10/23/09
10/23/09
10/23/09
10/23/09
And holidays, birthday parties, vacations - where lots of planning and staging is involved? Forget about it. #marcusbuckingham