Posted by [ 1) the accidental techie, 2) the uninvited, 3) transference california, 4) flow, 5) shadowing, 6) going inside, 7) lost and found, 8) 20/20 , 9) creating, 10) finished ]
The reason I wrote the last blog, aside from to entertain myself, was to ask: What makes a woman choose STEM?
I couldn’t answer this question even after reading the research, so I thought that I would start with me. After all, I am a woman, I didn’t want to go into tech, but have had a lovely time.
I already envisaged doing an overview about my undergraduate degree and the lovely men with whom I studied. In fact two of those men read the first blog soon after I pressed publish, shared it and then shared their experiences of Liverpool. I was joyful and glad they had reached out and joyful that I knew these friends, my male friends. I have always thought that I was an exception to the conclusions I came to during my Women series blogs. Lucky me!
So imagine my surprise on Saturday night when another man who was, at times during our four years in Liverpool, my best friend, posted a picture of these lovely male friends of mine on Facebook, out in the pub in Liverpool, enjoying a reunion to which I hadn’t known anything about. I was the uninvited.
I studied the photograph to see that there he was with eleven other men including the two men who had been so keen to let me know how they felt about my blog, but hadn’t been keen at all to tell me how they were all meeting up in two days time at a reunion for my course. That’s the kicker – they called it a reunion – the thoughtless, thoughtless men. And, then there was the bloke that everyone thinks is a dickhead, even he got an invite!
Today, I got an message from another man on the picture, trying to make light of it: It was just an oversight, we feel collectively guilty, you are a main member of the group, next time, smiley emoji, jokey-joke, I’m a great guy who treats everyone equally, don’t turn it into a feminist issue, thus really adding insult to injury.
It was the word collective which really triggered me. I have blogged about male group think in the workplace – women are not even seen, let alone considered – and silly woman I am, I blogged all that, all the while thinking how lucky I was to have a nice group of male colleagues with whom I studied and who were respectful and did see me. Little did I know, I was the uninvited, and not only that, I was then subjected to a #mansplaining message for me to not take on so, not overreact, don’t be that hysterical woman. Oh God, Ruth’s moaning again.
My best friend got it, or at least did a good impression of someone who got it last night, before the Ruth’s upset message he circulated which encouraged the other bloke to patronise me. He agreed that they are all thoughtless, thoughtless men, because a similar thing had happened to his son a couple of months ago and he is now one angry dad. I am sorry about his son too because a similar thing is happening to my youngest too at school.
She has a group of boys as friends who already practice social exclusion based on gender. Her best friend won’t invite her round on a playdate because he is worried that the other boys will make fun at him. I only got this information because I asked the boy’s mother directly and now I am angry too.
This mother hasn’t got the gumption to step in and parent her boy into being a respectful empathetic human being. Instead she and all the other boys’ parents are teaching them that it is fine to exclude girls, hurt their feelings and behave however the hell they like, one of the little charmers is forever calling my girl stupid and dumb. She had her birthday recently and she didn’t want him there, and yet he still turned up but had the good sense to get back into his car and get driven home. I don’t know which of his parents thought that was a good idea, but it broke my heart to see him put in that position, although there was no way he was coming in.
The irony is that the mothers of these boys would all describe themselves as feminists. Three of them have told me stories on the playground about the way they have suffered because of male groupthink, being passed over for promotion, and ousted out of jobs without any discussion because the discussion took place amongst the men probably in the pub when the women were not invited.
They have let my daughter down in an enormous way and by not teaching their boys how to respect girls, they are letting their sons down in an enormous way too. I am so disappointed in them.
We all have to take a collective hand in order to stop propagating the patriarchal patterns of females being the uninvited. It seems to be that these mothers have not even made the connection between their jobs and their sons and that one day these boys will be men who will treat them with no respect too. Feminism starts at home.
I tell my little girl through her tears that there is nothing wrong with her, she didn’t do anything wrong, nor should she try harder. The wrong lies with these parents who are teaching their boys that it is fine to take no responsibility for the impact they have on anyone around. They are socialising their boys to disrespect their female friends. Shame on them.
And all I can say, uninvited woman that I am, is that if my daughter is consistently and systematically shown by these little boys that her feelings are not important, then she has to take herself elsewhere and entrust her feelings to friends who will show respect and consideration for them. Otherwise she will end up like me crushed by a picture on Facebook.
[ part 3 ]
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