Oh Gawd!

Who are being martyrs now. Pot and kettles line up.

I'm sorry pelican,

I would respond it's just I have so much ironing to do.

You know, I "automatically 'take on' my spouses worries", and I don't look after my health and prioritise my children's .... oh the humanity! Maybe I'm a woman. Maybe I should retire at 40 due to 'burn out' too.

Oh, I give up. Please pelican, look at the evidence, I'm just not worthy. Please see....

'Posted by we are unique, Saturday, 7 August 2010 1:26:52 AM'

'Add to this, monthly cycles, gynaecological probs,pre-menopause, then menopause, just to name a few pain in the bum occurrences that women quietly soldier on with, while putting the family first, it is no surprise that women do not retire a great deal earlier; yet they keep working until their pay out to provide a roof over their family's heads.'

And that's just the tip of it.

'Posted by suzeonline, Saturday, 7 August 2010 4:27:56 PM' Comes a close second.

Then we have the last lot of posts about women suffering so much criticism and societal expectations.

When can women be freed from these societal expectations. It's a human rights issue!

PS: I cant decide whether my new moniker will be 'studies have shown' or 'societal expectations.'

Maybe I'll settle on 'The downtrodden martyrs of society'.

Then again 'Victim of Societal Expectations' has a nice ring to it.

Michelle

You sound shocked that anyone could possibly criticise you. Criticism is a part of our society. Men are socialised not to make a big deal over it. Why socialise women to feel hurt every time that they see something that is a part of everyone's life? Was this criticism the sort of thing that men aren't socialised to get offended over?

Get a grip Benk - I'm trying to follow the logic of the criticism. If we want forums to work as didactic then we've got to think through people's criticisms and take them on board if they're valuable. If I want to do this effectively, I have to get to the bottom of the criticism and understand it. I couldn't understand the criticism I was responding to because it went again the grain of the research I've encountered, the personal stories I've heard and my own story. But having read over what I wrote and carefully re-read the criticism I now believe that the critic and I were at cross purposes - we were talking about different things. A valuable exercise. I now hope that the critic responds so I can confirm whether this is the case or whether I still have some thinking to do. That's why I'm checking the forum. I know there's a lot of people on this and other forums who use these places as places to vent their particular frustrations but there are just as many people having good conversations. An easy way to signal to a person that you want to have the conversation and not simply vent and attack is by using some basic pleasantries. We all use our pleasantries differently and they don't always translate well to paper and pen but the general principals remain the same. Your role here is a little confusing to me. You're not talking to me about the ideas outlined in this article or the subsequent discussion at all, but merely the manner in which I phrase my conversation. I think I've already established that I'm not so good as phrasing. So ultimately dude, what's your point?

I remember reading an article by a feminist once.
She was bemoaning the fact that women are hard done by
because they are more likely to be left widowed than men!
Feminocentrism, I think it's called.

Michelle

My point is that receiving criticism is a part of life and stopping it is outside of our control. We can, however control how we react to it. There is a marked difference between how each gender is socialised to react to criticism. Men are told to get over it, which has both strengths and weaknesses. It is assumed that criticism of women, such as comments over mothers' choices about paid work is a major problem.

I choose to believe that women are a little tougher than it is often assumed. I definitely believe that encouraging people to believe that they need to live in a world free from criticism, in order to be happy, is setting them up to fail.