clearing out the 2014 linkspam

[firecat]

Why "you can just make your own clothes" isn't always a great alternative for people who can't wear straight sizes. I appreciate the reminder "There is no shame in not having a lot of craft skills, but there is shame in making people feel like they should have those skills."
http://meloukhia.net/2014/12/costuming_while_fat_and_uncrafty/

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This post discusses how there's still pushback against women choosing to keep their surname when they marry instead of taking their husband's surname. I'm disappointed that it didn't address alternatives to the two most common cases: (a) women changing their surnames to their husbands' after marriage or (b) keeping their original surnames. (My outlaw husband and I both chose a new last name.)
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/dec/12/im-getting-married-should-i-change-my-surname

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A few on how women are more harshly judged than men.

Impostor syndrome: The feeling that you’re not really qualified for something, that you are pretending, that you will, at any moment, be caught out by someone who actually knows what she is doing. The constant nagging fear of humiliation as people realise that you were faking it all along, and that you’re really just a pathetic excuse for a human being who tried to weasel your way into a position of respect and authority. The knowledge that, at any moment, someone will expose you as what you really are.

It’s a phenomenon that’s most commonly seen among women, thanks to the pernicious effects of sexism and social attitudes about women – women are taught that they cannot and will never succeed in life, and thus, they underestimate their own abilities. They work harder than men to achieve the same results, but more than that, they push themselves harder when they don’t actually need to, and consistently rate their achievements lower than men who have not worked as hard, and have not achieved the same goals.

I don't generally believe I'm not qualified for things—if I'm signed up to do something, I feel like I get to make it up as I go along, and I know that's how other successful people do things. And so I think of myself as mostly not having imposter syndrome. But I do consistently believe that what I achieve is not very important and not very impressive. (I don't agree with the belief, if that makes any sense, but it is there.) So if that's part of imposter syndrome, then I guess I do experience imposter syndrome.

• This post discusses how men in the workplace use imposter syndrome to undermine women. http://meloukhia.net/2014/11/exploiting_impostor_syndrome/
• “'Women in authority positions are viewed as lacking the assertiveness and confidence of strong leaders. But when these women display such characteristics, they are judged negatively for being unfeminine,' Dr Pudrovska says." I think it applies to other aspects of women's lives as well, such as home life. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/gender-stereotypes-pose-mental-health-threat-to-female-bosses-9883152.html
• "Study: Online teachers get higher ratings when students think they're male." http://boingboing.net/2014/12/10/online-teachers-get-higher-rat.html

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Keith Knight provides a retrospective of his cartoons about interactions between black people and police.
https://medium.com/the-nib/they-shoot-black-people-dont-they-a5d00c790842

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We're going to have to stop making fun of "nucular," unless we want to call singing insects "waps" and flying avians "brids".
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/11/pronunciation-errors-english-language

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Via jae: How to copyedit without excess prescriptivism
http://allthingslinguistic.com/post/74217867222/hello-tried-searching-but-didnt-turn-anything-up

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This one is officially 2015, but I'm sticking it in anyway. Like it says on the tin. Lots of good suggestions in the comments.
http://captainawkward.com/2015/01/02/651-how-do-i-tell-people-what-i-do-if-im-not-employed/

Comments

[trouble]

I'm actually really surprised that more people don't just pick a new name that suits both partners.

I'm looking forward to reading the rest of these soon!

[trouble]

Re: the one on changing pronunciation, I've recently started listening to a podcast called The History of the English Language and it talks a lot about Grimm's Law and how language shift has rules and can be somewhat predicted and used to reconstruct older languages. It's really interesting, and I highly recommend it.

[firecat]

Some of the flak I got for our choosing a new name included "It will confuse the genealogists!" (As if the custom of the woman taking the man's name doesn't make it hard already.)

[trouble]

Trying to follow women through the historical record is really hard. Right now I'm doing a research job where I have to keep track of certain teachers between 1911 and 1927, and I have no idea if I've lost them because they stopped teaching in the district or if they changed their names.

[stardreamer]

Re name-changing: Unsurprisingly, what this really appears to be about is that it's still anathema for women to make their own choices about anything at all. The only reasonable response to the question, "Should I change my name when I marry?" is, "Do you WANT to?" Other issues may be on the table as well, but that's the only one that matters; anything else is only there to inform the answer to that question.

I changed names when I married -- not out of "tradition" or because I thought it symbolized "making a real commitment" or any of that rot, but because I HATED MY LAST NAME. Nobody could spell it. Nobody could pronounce it. Nobody could file it properly. It made a lot of people think I was male. Getting married gave me a get-out-of-all-that-shit-free card, and by ghod I grabbed it with both hands and ran. And when we divorced, I didn't go back either!

[firecat]

That's a good reason to change your last name. I don't like mine, but I didn't like the OH's either.

[stardreamer]

After reading the first link -- it would never occur to me to tell anyone "just make your own" whatever-it-is, because I don't sew myself! I might ask them if they sew, but an answer of "no" immediately shuts down that entire branch of the decision tree.

If I thought the person was actually looking for advice / suggestions, here are some ideas I'd offer:

- eBay, where you can search on "Size X" and at least come up with a selection of things that might fit and be suitable for a reasonable price

- If a caftan would work, Ross Dress for Less generally has a rack of them that are One Size Fits Up To About 3X. (And I'm a fairly decent judge of sizes because of selling T-shirts, so I wouldn't even mention that to someone who looked larger than a 3X.)

- I do know a couple of thrift shops which are better than most at having large sizes on hand, so I could recommend those to someone local.

[firecat]

Those are helpful tips!

[pulchritude]

I can't imagine a Chinese person (in this case someone who is a sourcelander) choosing a new surname tbh. That pretty much goes against everything that I know - I can't even fathom the idea. But we also have a different (and much longer) history with surnames, and women have never changed surnames upon marriage, either, so I suppose the idea isn't even really fathomable for us because there isn't a history of changing surnames upon marriage in the first place.

[firecat]

Yeah if you just keep one for life then choosing a new one for marriage doesn't make sense.

[lilacsigil]

I do sew my own clothes, but I know exactly what meloukhia is talking about - it's not the fun, sharing crafty side of things, it's the instant dismissal. I mentioned I was having trouble finding work shirts and the immediate response was "Can't you just make one?" Well yes, I can, but there's a lot of work in that, too, and it would be very nice just to be able to go to a shop and buy one in my size at a reasonable price in a not-horrible style and fabric. There's a big difference between "Oh, you sew? Let's share patterns!" and "Oh, just make your own, I choose not to recognise the time, effort and money that goes into that."

[firecat]

Well said.

[jesse_the_k]

Keef! Thank you for the Keith Knight link, I realize I've been missing his work in my life.

[firecat]

Isn't he wonderful?!

[jesse_the_k]

Delightful. Now I can spend a happy day or two catching up on a decade's worth of strips.

Damn I need a comics icon

[firecat]

Feel free to steal this; I did.

[sabotabby]

"There is no shame in not having a lot of craft skills, but there is shame in making people feel like they should have those skills."

Yes, this! I am a decent painter, illustrator, and designer, but I have very rudimentary craft skills. I LARP, used to do steampunk cosplay, and have awesome concepts for Halloween costumes, but making my own clothes requires time, skills, and money that I just don't have. I'm of a fairly standard clothing size, so I can only imagine how much that difficulty is compounded if you're bigger.

[leafrider.livejournal.com]

Those are some great links, especially on Imposter Syndrome - been there, done that. I think the worse case of it I had was in my last job before I retired, because I'd reached a position in civil service that few people do without a college degree, and being a woman on top of that brought me face to face with some men who resented me quite a lot. I had to give myself a talking to regularly, just to believe I could do it. It was a horribly stressful job anyway, even without that, and I couldn't retire fast enough from that one, I'm afraid. I guess I let it all get to me.

Aside from the skills and equipment and time needed, I don't think anyone saves money making one's own clothes since at least the 1970s. I've made some of my own clothes all my life (since my teens), as both a fat and thin person, mostly just sewing them in the early years, and later knitting some as well. It rarely worked out to be cheaper unless I could get everything I needed on sale at some deep discount. (I still watch carefully for yarn sales, but I don't sew as much since retiring.) The biggest advantage from making your own clothes is that you get something unique. You chose the fabrics/colors, and so forth, and you have the satisfaction of knowing you made it. To me that's a big part of what makes sewing and knitting fun. Economic? No, they can be expensive hobbies.

[firecat]

I'm glad you're out of that stressful job.

I think it can be more economical to make fancy costumes than to buy them, and it can be economical to thrift clothes and then repurpose them, but ordinary clothes are definitely cheaper when made by factories.

[mama-hogswatch.livejournal.com]

Sewing well for a specific body with lots of curved shapes is VERY HARD. The idea that someone SHOULD be able to "just make" such a thing is idiotic.

I mean, jesus tapdancing christ, one of the reasons that the fashion industry doesn't serve the large body is that it IS hard. (There are others, of course)

If professionals in their field find it difficult, the idea that it should be something trivial for a non-professional to do is obnoxious.

I AM a skilled seamstress, but that did take twenty years of practice.