(no subject)

It's possible that I'm already up to the penultimate draft of the PhD work. All those years in the public service and (more recently) working with small press on books, has made a big difference at this end of things. There are some checks I do automatically (like making sure Word hasn't switched fonts on me) and I know how to see the look of the printed page from the screen version.

This doesn't mean I'm happy with it yet. That's the point, though, with my training, I'm never going to be happy, for I will always worry about that last typo or the fact that a page looks clumsy. One of my publications had reversion to an earlier version just before print, and no-one realised until it was too late. This always haunts me and so I am never content. Apparently most students are happier with less cleaning up before their work goes in and are not quite as careful in the early stages with formatting. This leads, of course, to many iterations.

There may still be problems, of course, but we suddenly have several days to troubleshoot them if there are. And I won't actually come off this high-nerve ledge until the thing is in. I do think, however, that I might be able to return to some of my normal activities from this weekend. If I feel a bit less tired than now, then I might even go to CSFG's meeting tomorrow night.

The other news is that the Beast has suddenly made huge strides. I don't know quite when we'll reach the end, but it will be sooner rather than later, all going well.

All this work never changes things and never changes things and never changes things and then there's a moment when I realise that it does change things, only I was too busy reaching the goal to notice that it's within sight. Not there yet, in other words, but definitely reassured.

Today is mainly about job applications, I think, so it's good to know that the world does shift, even when it feels as if it dosn't. Today my middle name is 'Galileo' - and I am worried I'll be forced to recant and to admit that life is impossibly hard and never changes. Even if I have to recant, however, at least I've had this moment.

(no subject)

My useful thought for the day is to look at my TV viewing and count the number of women and count the number of men and work out (by simple numbers) what that tells me about women's place in society. What it tells me is that the ratio of women to men ranges from 1:2 to 1:10. If one adds in speaking, then women are expected to let others do it except in very specific cases*.

None of this is new. All of it has been studied. I just thought it helped explain (to me) why some idiots don't see that Gillard was stating the literal truth about Tony Abbott's misogyny. I've seen so many cries of "But where's the evidence" even though Gillard provided quite enough concrete evidence, using Abbott's own words. Some of these accusations come from misogynists, of course, who don't want to admit that something they think may not be the best thing they could think and may not earn them social brownie points. In other cases, however, these people are not seeing their own bias and not understanding the permissions that Abbott has to speak and that Gillard usually doesn't. I've even heard people saying that other people have addressed the issue for Gillard and so she shouldn't have done so: this is another form of permission.

That ratio of women to men in media disempowers women. Giving men the speaking parts and the action roles above women denies women the authenticity of speaking about their own experience.

This bugs me. It also (which is worse) has caused me to say to myself "Maybe I should let others say what needs to be said - they have cultural permission and I don't." This is so very wrong that I felt I should post about my count of what happens on my TV screen.

This post is brief because I have so much else to do, but I couldn't let it pass.



*some programs had much healthy ratios of speaking and agency for women - these programs were, however in the minority.


ETA: What I was wondering originally, when I started noticing numbers (ages and ages ago) was what messages aliens got about our society from current TV. One of the messages is taht we have a male majority.