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Aug. 1st, 2009 03:26 pmI've decided to be amused rather than angry. A half dozen people got a bit ratbaggy about me on a website last year. It keeps on coming back to bite me, but I was determined to ignore it. This time, though, the bit that came back to bite me was a comment someone made that I was kind of exaggerating in a bio I'd apparently put up on a site all by myself. I looked at the bio and I laughed. It was on the Women's History Month site.
Now, I might have been one of the founders of Women's History Month in Australia, but I left the committee some years ago. I left it in really capable hands, too. The only interaction I had with the current website or its contents was at its launch at Parliament House where, you will remember, I got to dress up and drink orange juice and listen to BigWigs tell funny stories. I saw a lot of good folks and made many plans for coffee. Those plans have fallen under the truck of unwellness and I need to make some emails. Or invite friends to my booklaunch. Or both.
What was said about me that was so very inaccurate? Well, I definitely have that doctorate. In fact, I have paper and a bit. My first father used to encourage me to get qualifications because, he said, they would make useful wallpaper for the toilet. They would, if I knew where I kept them, but that's not relevant. The fact that I've lost the pieces of paper and they don't plaster the wall above my toilet doesn't actually mean I don't possess the qualifications. If the guy doesn't believe the Women's History month claim about me having qualifications, though, he could easily have checked up on me.
That bio is way old. I've had a lot more than twenty pieces published. It's over 200, these days. Most of those pieces are in fairly obscure places, but some are screamingly obvious. I so want to be snide and claim that the commenter maybe couldn't read, but it's probably much simpler. He probably didn't use a search engine intelligently, or check my website. (I don't need to comment on the "Do I teach?" because the whole argument was about whether a course of mine was worth attending. The readers of the comments thought not, but the attendees loved it, so the question is moot.)
The big error in the bio webpage is that it has duplicate sentences and that it's very out of date. I had to retire from a lot of things due to ill-health, a few years ago. This sentence is therefore particularly wrong: She is on the editorial board of H-France and is a member of the ACT Ministerial Advisory Council on Women. Her volunteer work includes working in the Jewish Community (especially for the National Council of Jewish Women) and working to promote women's issues and to reduce racism. It once was almost my whole life, too. Whoever put the bio up probably had access to a bio that was current at the time. Which is fair enough.
What puzzles me is how any of this can be seen as puffery. It's all verifiable. You can find me on lists and minutes of meetings and websites, working on all these issues. Old lists, old minutes of meetings, old websites. But still.
I suspect that the person is question is really jealous of aspects of it. He's never been on the Ministerial Advisory Council for Women, perhaps? That's one body I wouldn't mind returning to. One of the best committees on which I've ever served. Or maybe he's really jealous of me being a woman. I'll hand him all my current womanly symptoms instantly, if that's the case.
And now I'm waffling, when I am supposed to be working on the introduction to Baggage. I think this means I'm a little angry as well as being very amused. If you're going to be rude about someone's background, please check before making public comments about it?
My thoughts have reached the logical place. What should have been on that bio on the Women's History site, in order for the guy's umbrage to be well-based? I'm open to suggestions. My first thought is that "Gillian is secretly an elf, and seven foot tall."
Now, I might have been one of the founders of Women's History Month in Australia, but I left the committee some years ago. I left it in really capable hands, too. The only interaction I had with the current website or its contents was at its launch at Parliament House where, you will remember, I got to dress up and drink orange juice and listen to BigWigs tell funny stories. I saw a lot of good folks and made many plans for coffee. Those plans have fallen under the truck of unwellness and I need to make some emails. Or invite friends to my booklaunch. Or both.
What was said about me that was so very inaccurate? Well, I definitely have that doctorate. In fact, I have paper and a bit. My first father used to encourage me to get qualifications because, he said, they would make useful wallpaper for the toilet. They would, if I knew where I kept them, but that's not relevant. The fact that I've lost the pieces of paper and they don't plaster the wall above my toilet doesn't actually mean I don't possess the qualifications. If the guy doesn't believe the Women's History month claim about me having qualifications, though, he could easily have checked up on me.
That bio is way old. I've had a lot more than twenty pieces published. It's over 200, these days. Most of those pieces are in fairly obscure places, but some are screamingly obvious. I so want to be snide and claim that the commenter maybe couldn't read, but it's probably much simpler. He probably didn't use a search engine intelligently, or check my website. (I don't need to comment on the "Do I teach?" because the whole argument was about whether a course of mine was worth attending. The readers of the comments thought not, but the attendees loved it, so the question is moot.)
The big error in the bio webpage is that it has duplicate sentences and that it's very out of date. I had to retire from a lot of things due to ill-health, a few years ago. This sentence is therefore particularly wrong: She is on the editorial board of H-France and is a member of the ACT Ministerial Advisory Council on Women. Her volunteer work includes working in the Jewish Community (especially for the National Council of Jewish Women) and working to promote women's issues and to reduce racism. It once was almost my whole life, too. Whoever put the bio up probably had access to a bio that was current at the time. Which is fair enough.
What puzzles me is how any of this can be seen as puffery. It's all verifiable. You can find me on lists and minutes of meetings and websites, working on all these issues. Old lists, old minutes of meetings, old websites. But still.
I suspect that the person is question is really jealous of aspects of it. He's never been on the Ministerial Advisory Council for Women, perhaps? That's one body I wouldn't mind returning to. One of the best committees on which I've ever served. Or maybe he's really jealous of me being a woman. I'll hand him all my current womanly symptoms instantly, if that's the case.
And now I'm waffling, when I am supposed to be working on the introduction to Baggage. I think this means I'm a little angry as well as being very amused. If you're going to be rude about someone's background, please check before making public comments about it?
My thoughts have reached the logical place. What should have been on that bio on the Women's History site, in order for the guy's umbrage to be well-based? I'm open to suggestions. My first thought is that "Gillian is secretly an elf, and seven foot tall."