I'm posting this article in in honor of International Women's Day (Mar.8).
Dec. 14, 2021 "Women, interrupted: The right way to be rude at work": Today I found this article by Rosemary Counter in the Financial Post. I really like this article because it's about a woman who is standing up for herself (and other women).
We should not interrupt each other, and be polite. There were some good tips here:
On live morning television, when another (male) panelist refused to let her finish a sentence, U.K.-based writer Rebecca Reid dared do what women everywhere can only mostly dream of:
She put one finger up (not that one), held it to her lips, and repeatedly “shushed” him. The Internet went wild, calling her — among other, far worse things — “Rebecca Rude.”
But three years later, Reid’s having the last lingering laugh with her book ‘Rude: Stop Being Nice and Start Being Bold.’ Reid tells First Hand why shushing’s probably not the best tactic but being rude is definitely not as bad as it sounds.
FP Work: I just watched your famous clip online. Can you tell me your version of events?
Rebecca Reid: I was appearing on a television show alongside a comedian. The whole thing was only a couple of minutes, and he’d answered a lot of things already, and every time I started to talk he would talk over me. Now look, I’ve been talked over thousands of times before in this life, in meetings and on phone calls and at family dinners, but this was just the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. This was one step too far.
FP Work: So what did you do, Rebecca? You know what you did.
RR : I put my finger to my lips and I went “shuuussshh.” Just like that. Then I said something like, “You can be quiet or I can keep shushing you but I’m going to talk now.” It was relatively aggressive, I admit it.
FP Work: I think a lot of women want to say this a lot. Good for you and double points for doing it on live television!
RR: Well, I’m proud that I did it but I see now shushing isn’t the perfect way to assert yourself. It was a bit childish, and I was a bit rude, and therefore the fallout was pretty bad.
The trolling was bad, the comments were bad. The fact that I’m a normal-looking woman instead of outrageously beautiful somehow mattered to the fact that I wanted to speak. Of the other comments, the majority said I was rude, disrespectful, just not a nice or decent person.
Now I know I’m nice and decent, even though I was rude in that moment, and that got me rethinking rudeness and why you have to be rude sometimes.
FP Work: Your book is divided into chapters titled by so-called rude women such as Princess Margaret, Tallulah Bankhead and Meghan Markle. Do you have a favourite rude comment?
RR: Oh, that’s a hard one. The story that comes right to mind is Princess Margaret sitting at a dinner party with Tony Blair and his wife, Cherie, who had just had a baby. Princess Margaret paid the usual lip service — oh, how nice, how old is she, etc. — until Cherie asked if she’d like to see a photo, to which the princess said “No.”
How many of us have wanted to say this but never do? She’s a great example of what women might say if they were socialized differently and weren’t subject to other people’s opinions.
FP Work: I could talk about Princess Margaret all day, but because we’re supposed to be talking about work, can tell you me about rudeness at the office?
RR: Women in particular spend a lot of time and energy trying not to be “rude” all the time. One way we do this is constantly monitoring our emails. Once I was conscious of this, I’d catch myself writing “I’m so sorry but I was just wondering if there is any chance that you could possibly…” instead of asking “could you?” You’re not being rude, you’re being direct.
FP Work: I confess I’m guilty of a whole lot of “sorries” and “justs” in my emails. It’s a hard habit to break.
RR: Sometimes it’s easier to stand up for someone else than yourself. If there’s someone at work who talks over you or claims other people’s ideas, here’s what I suggest:
Go into a meeting with a buddy and have each other’s back. When anyone notices them talking over or interrupting, your buddy interrupts with, “I don’t think Samantha was quite finished there,” or “Yes, I also like Samantha’s idea.” You can be “rude” on her behalf.
FP Work: This all kind of reminds me of VP Kamala Harris saying, “Mr. Vice President, I’m speaking.”
RR: See, that’s the exact ideal of how to handle that situation. That’s how I wish I did it, as that’s right kind of rude, and I’m honoured by the comparison. But even it’s not perfect, the important thing is to do something.
Women, interrupted: The right way to be rude at work | Financial Post
Nov. 30, 2021 "Our notions about women and competition might be all wrong": Today I found this article by Rosemary Counter in the Financial Post. I like this article because it's about psychology:
Conventional wisdom — or at least a half-century’s worth of deeply ingrained gender norms — tells us the wage gap so stubbornly persists in part because of women themselves:
We don’t negotiate higher salaries, we fail to ask for the pay raises we deserve, we don’t apply for promotions even when fully qualified for bigger and better gigs.
Professor Mary Rigdon isn’t buying any of that. Here’s how the associate director of the University of Arizona’s Centre for the Philosophy of Freedom set out to prove our notions of women and competition all wrong.
FP Work: Your field seems to be a really disheartening pile of studies saying women at work are not confident, confrontational or competitive. I try not to read them, to be honest.
Mary Rigdon: These studies are everywhere, yes. One recent one found that in a winner-takes-all tournament where the top person gets all the money, men entered at a much higher rate. Women will self-select themselves out and choose not to compete.
Women prefer to have a simple problem rewarded, say, $2 per problem solved, regardless how others are performing. Psychologists took that result and said, “Well, women are just less competitive than men. That’s that.”
FP Work: How convenient! That really explains away a lot.
MR: For a long time, and peaking in the 1980s, there was this very steep curve of women getting degrees and moving into the workplace… then it just flattened out. In the last ten to fifteen years, especially for college and university-educated women, that momentum just kinda stopped. Why? Economists are long looking for an explanation, and a very common one is that women are just less competitive than men. We shy away from competition, we’re not willing to go out and get it, that’s why we’re not represented at certain levels and in certain occupations.
FP Work: I wish you could see me scowling and shaking my head right now.
MR: Because the message is “Lean In!” or “Just be more like men” or even “try harder.” Now these are okay messages, sometimes, but at some point — and this is probably why you’re shaking your head — you have to ask, “You know what, maybe it’s actually the system?” That got us thinking about incentive. If the reward system itself was different, would the results be different? Maybe we could change this “money-only” payoff that is typical of Fortune 500 companies for something with a “social” aspect.
FP Work: I’m so excited! Tell me about your experiment.
MR: Alongside my co-author, Alessandra Cassar, we used 230 participants, all of them graduate students, and we used the same simple methodology (as the above study). Participants got to choose between receiving $2 per problem solved, regardless of the other performers, or $4 per problem solved but only the top two performers would be paid for their work.
FP Work: It’s like we’re in Vegas doubling-down.
MR: Exactly. Fifty-two per cent of men will choose the competitive option while only 34 per cent of women will. But we made a simple twist to the tournament by allowing the winners to share their prize.
So the prize had the exact same winner-take-all model with the caveat that, if you win, you can allocate some of your winnings to a lower-performing competitor. And as soon as we added the sharing component, women entered the tournament at 60 per cent — nearly double their usual entry rate. Men’s participation stayed the same.
FP Work: Wow, that’s interesting. What does that mean to you?
MR: It mostly gives me a lot more questions, and the first one is: Did they actually share their earnings? And the very surprising answer is: no, not really. They gave away just 15 per cent, a much lower amount than we expected.
Women recognized sharing as a reason to compete, but at the end of the day, they weren’t generous. We have a lot of ‘why’ questions.
FP Work: What a curveball! Maybe they want to seem nice and generous and lady-like, but it’s all just an excuse to compete.
MR: That’s the million-dollar question. We’re designing experiments next to try to answer the question of underlying motivations. It’s pretty clear that once you change that prize, you change the game.
Our notions about women and competition might be all wrong | Financial Post
This week's theme is about women in the workplace:
"Canadian women make 89 cents for every dollar men earn. Can new federal legislation narrow that gap?/ "Viral post shows who's to blame for pay inequity"
"Women entrepreneurs create fake male assistants to navigate gender biases"/ "'Same old, same old': Why Canada has so few female CEOs"
My week:
Feb. 25, 2022 "How technology is helping shrink grocery bills by cutting food waste": Today I found this article by on CBC news. I posted an article about these apps before, but here's another one:
A number of companies — including Flashfood, Too Good To Go and FeedBack — have entered the Canadian market billing themselves as an innovative way to simultaneously cut food waste and save money.
"They are becoming more popular because more and more consumers realise that savings occur more on the back-end of the grocery store experience," said Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab and professor at Dalhousie University.
"There's not a whole lot of promotions going on in stores."
The premise is simple. Users who sign up are alerted when a grocery store or restaurant in their area has surplus food left over nearing the end of the day. The specific contents of every "surprise bag" aren't finalized until the end of the day, but anyone interested in broad categories such as baked goods, fully prepared meals, assorted groceries or fresh produce, can select one, pay for it in the app, and show up at the location in question at a prearranged time to pick it up.
The store gets to book a sale that they otherwise wouldn't have been able to, and consumers get something fresh and new for about one third of the regular price, he said in an interview.
"Perfectly healthy, delicious food doesn't end up in the trash and ends up on someone's table for them to consume," he said.
Inefficient system
Food rescue apps and discount produce stores are good tools to help consumers reduce waste and save money, said Tammara Soma, research director of the Food Systems Lab and assistant professor at the Simon Fraser University.
But long-term, she sees the need for bigger changes, like shortening the supply chain to cut the distance between us and our food by growing in urban areas.
How technology is helping shrink grocery bills by cutting food waste | CBC News
Feb. 28, 2022 Here are charities to help Ukraine: I posted this on Facebook:
Prior to this, Christine Pirovolakis, Senior External Relations Officer at the UK branch of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told The Independent: “UNHCR is aware of reports of individuals facing challenges entering Poland from Ukraine and is following up on them.
“We advocate for access to safety for all, regardless their legal status, nationality and race as well as access to asylum for those who want to seek asylum.”
This comes after a number of Black, south Asian and Mediterranean refugees shared accounts of being blocked at borders while trying to make crossings while white Ukranians have been prioritised.
Black people living in the region told The Independent that they have been denied assistance during the worsening crisis with some taking to social media in recent days to share their experiences.
Organisations, government officials and public figures around the world have condemned the discriminatory treatment including the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, the African Union and American entertainer Beyoncé.
The BeyGood charity, which Beyoncé launched in 2013, tweeted on Monday: “We are saddened by the news of African and other international students being denied at the border as they attempt to leave Ukraine. We are hopeful that the various embassies could swiftly rectify the situation to help those in need of support.”
UN admits refugees have faced racism at Ukraine borders (yahoo.com)
"How Ukrainians have used social media to humiliate the Russians and rally the world": Today I found this article by Drew Harwell and Rachel Lerman on Yahoo news:
Ukrainians and their supporters have used social media to bruise, belittle and humiliate the Russians, seeking to boost citizens' spirits and sap invaders' morale during the most Internet-accessible war in history.
A flood of real-time videos across Facebook, Telegram, TikTok and Twitter has blunted Kremlin propaganda and rallied the world to Ukraine's side as it fights to defend its democracy from a military behemoth.
It has also potentially saved lives: Ukrainians have raced to disseminate defensive strategies, plot escape routes and document the brutality of a raging clash. Some expect that the phone footage recorded in recent days could play a critical role in investigating war crimes after the combat ends.
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