Starting PhD...in 30s?

[samman1994]

1 minute ago, BunnyN said:

As a TA, I know I am not supposed to date students in my class. I don't think it's appropriate for faculty members to date students in their department.

Luckily, I'm not attracted to any faculty member in my school.

It's clear to me that going off campus is the best route, I just haven't figured out how. I'll  join my local cycling club to find like minded adults, hopefully it's going to work.

 

Dating sites work really well actually, so you could try that. Local club activities and events work well. I personally like the whole night-club dance scene (love salsa night). So there are plenty of ways to find someone, hell you might find someone in a grocery store. My parents met in a photography class they took outside of school for fun, so you never know. 

[BunnyN]

6 minutes ago, samman1994 said:

Dating sites work really well actually, so you could try that. Local club activities and events work well. I personally like the whole night-club dance scene (love salsa night). So there are plenty of ways to find someone, hell you might find someone in a grocery store. My parents met in a photography class they took outside of school for fun, so you never know. 

A few years ago, I went to a painting class with my date. There were a ton of girls there!

Too bad I wasn't alone.

[_kita]

On ‎9‎/‎18‎/‎2017 at 9:31 PM, fuzzylogician said:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/tracyclayton/stop-calling-women-females?utm_term=.dvW7DZ2vz#.wszZdPxe9

Interesting, I usually refer to myself as a 'female' over 'woman' simply because I like the way the word sounds better. Plus, most people don't mistake me for saying I'm a cat (maybe a crazy cat-lady though....).

 I'll have to keep this in mind when I'm talking to other women in the future.

[rheya19]

On 9/19/2017 at 9:04 PM, cowgirlsdontcry said:

The truth is the terms male/female could refer to any animal. Although I don't find it offensive, I do prefer to be called by a human term. Simply saying female instead of woman/women infers a lower order animal, that has been used in the past to relegate women to lower positions of power. It becomes a bullying tactic some men use in grad school towards women. I call my undergrad students men and women, because they are adults, albeit young ones.

I also prefer the term "woman" to "female." I'm a female human being, i.e. a woman. I don't think anyone I've met is purposefully trying to demean me by calling me "a female," but it is strangely, subtly dehumanizing. It doesn't feel right. 

[rheya19]

23 hours ago, rheya19 said:

I also prefer the term "woman" to "female." I'm a female human being, i.e. a woman. I don't think anyone I've met is purposefully trying to demean me by calling me "a female," but it is strangely, subtly dehumanizing. It doesn't feel right. 

LOL I've been putting far too much time into thinking about this, but I think I figured out why I feel like the term "female" (as a noun) is subtly demeaning: because so much of the world is constantly trying to either infantilize or objectify women. Women have so many fewer fair representations in the media; women have difficulties finding equality and respect in many, many relationships throughout our lives; our experiences in scholarship are "feminist scholarship" whereas men's perspectives are "scholarship;" etc etc. I mean, I get that to most of the world, my main characteristic is "female," but I also know that I am not just my plumbing and someone to sell cosmetics to, and I'd really like everyone else to catch on. Maybe other women here have similar or different opinions. 

Edited October 3, 2017 by rheya19
Clarification

[_kita]

@rheya19 I definitely see where you are coming from. I used to be really sensitized to this with everyone around me. It felt like my personal and professional lives identified me first as a girl (not even woman) to talk down to, pat on the head, and say "you're pretty" before dismissing whatever point I made.  About 5 years ago, the constant derision drove me nuts. That was one part of my decision to re-make my life. The sexist problems in my life did change with the rest of the re-make. As I'm in a sector of health care, most of my co-workers are women, and the CEO is even a woman. My social life became a lot less sexist (which is ironic because a lot of those friends from before are gender non-conforming).  Now my 'female-ness' is about as inconvenient to me as my 'left-handedness' - and I'm not worried about humanizing my hand preference...

Contrarily, I am aware that this is still a social problem that women deal with every day whether in America or globally. Which is why I'm fully willing to say "oh, I don't see it that way, but I can see why someone would. I'll need to be more aware of this going forward."

 

[samman1994]

Well I didn't want to detract from the main topic of the post, but appears it's a bit too late for that. It appears this is all from a womens (or females, I don't know which is appropriate when) perspective, so I guess I'll provide it from a mans perspective (actually, interesting enough, it feels normal writing "mans perspective", but doesn't feel normal using "womens perspective", like I feel like it's usually written as "females perspective", but I guess that is the whole point of this post). 

I think the main issue lies in the ignorance factor. As an example, I used to know very little about how other women were regarded in the work place. My assumption was always, well we all go through the same thing and are treated the same way. So my experience is no different than a womens. I think a lot of men actually think this way as well. So if a women were to come and discuss how they are treated differently, the men look at it as complaining. "Oh you're just being a baby, we are all treated the same". I worked with a lot of women in my lab, and my PI was a women. Hell most of the department were all women, and they used to discuss their previous work experiences and hiring process experiences as well. Their experiences were definitely different than any mans experience I had heard. The idea of looking at a women the same as a man is definitely a growing idea, but it is definitely not shared by all (whether subconsciously or consciously). 

The whole concept of equality of man and women is, there is no man and women. They are one and the same. Thus, a persons gender should not influence how they are hired or what job they get. They should be seen equally as a man, and treated no differently, both in the workplace and in language. Which is, I think, the whole point of this post. I.E. writing females perspective, but not writing males perspective. Now I think this is primarily because that is probably how I have always seen it, and thus how I write it, but I think it's important to wonder, well why is it written that way? Why do we address women as "female" in our writing, but men as "men" in our writing (or even speaking). Why are they written/spoken differently? Now I personally don't, and didn't, think much of it. I don't know, I've always seen it that way, so that's why I say it, I don't mean anything from it. But one could argue, it is used to separate or even bring women down. A way of thinking/speaking that has become ingrained in our culture. So when you use it, your use may be innocent, but you are inadvertently contributing to the "women hate".

Now I cannot speak for the person who originally made the post, but I have always used women and female interchangeably. Not that I meant anything by it, but because I didn't even know there was anything meant by it. In retrospect, as given by the example earlier, I definitely do think it's weird men and male are not used interchangeably, but female and women are. I also did not know people did use this difference, to bring a women down. So all this being said, I think it's an important consideration to take into account. I think as a man, it's important to acknowledge I really don't know how women are treated (whether good or bad), and when it is stated how they are, it should not just be dismissed as "casual feminist bullshit".  

Anyways, that's my 2-cents. 

Edit: One thing I'd like to give some perspective on, at least for me personally, is this fight for women equality is completely different from my cultural and background experience. The fight here is for equal view (this extends to language, pay, work opportunities, etc.), but from where I am from, the fight for womens rights is for them to have the right to even live (comfortably). I'm used to more polarizing arguments fighting to let women walk in the street without being covered head to toe, or being able to even go to school with another man, so I miss a lot of the subtleties of these conversations. Not that I think the conversation is not important, but rather, these topics for womens rights are topics I am not used to and do not completely understand (I.e. since I'm not a women and the cultural difference). 

Edited October 3, 2017 by samman1994
Clarification