Why Don't Men Read Blogs By Women?

It has been an interesting day on Twitter.  I have been at home working on a presentation that I am giving next week, and so I've been regularly checking in and causing trouble.  I may have gotten really angry at a blogger for disregarding privilege.  I regret nothing.

One of the things that came up on Twitter was female bloggers and the recognition that they do (or do not) receive in the financial blogging world.  I've never written or tweeted about this before, but I have definitely noticed that there are far fewer comments from men on women's blogs than there are on men's blogs.  Sometimes this makes sense:   In a world where women are predominantly responsible for the domestic side of life, I get why there aren't a lot of men reading bloggers who write about frugal cooking and parenting*.

But sometimes the blogs written by women are just damn good blogs for anyone, regardless of gender or gender role.  And yet, men still don't read them.  To make sure this wasn't just something I was imagining, after the Twitter conversation today, I reviewed the comments from two really good financial blogs that everyone should be reading:  Physician on FIRE and Bitches Get Riches.  Of the last 20 comments for which I could identify the commenter's gender, Physician on FIRE had received a somewhat even split of 8 comments from women and 12 from men.

Bitches Get Riches?  18 women and 2 men.

Which means that men are missing some of the funniest and most thought-provoking posts in the financial blogosphere right now.  And why?  Because a person's genitalia somehow makes them more or less capable of writing about money?

Sadly, I think this is all part of our legacy of presenting the white male viewpoint as the primary viewpoint.  Now, please don't misinterpret this as me saying that I dislike white men or I don't think we should read things by white men.  There are many white men who I think are lovely and valuable members of our society**.  But I think it's unfortunate that in the vast majority of books, tv shows, movies, plays, etc. that we are exposed to, the protagonist is a white male.  It not only limits the ideas that we're exposed to, but it also conditions us to see the white man as the default.  Anything else is "diversity".

As a queer woman, my own identity compels me to search out things that are created by and represent people more like me, so I naturally go beyond the white/straight/cis-gender male story.  But if I were a white man?  What motivation would I have to look beyond the abundance of stories that speak directly to me?  And how would I ever learn to appreciate that the world can be a very different place for people who aren't exactly like me?

I know that this is a broad generalization and that there are men who are enlightened and who read blogs and other things that are written by women.  But we need more of them.

*This is its own blog post.

**Apparently not this one.

The Weekly Hiss and Purr - September 7 Edition

I knew from the beginning that I was unlikely to write a "Hiss and Purr" post every week, but I was hoping to do it a bit more frequently than monthly.  By comparison, slukettg at This Liminal Space has been writing her "Weekly Hiss and Purr" literally every week and has lapped me in a very short time.  (If you haven't read her recent post about substance abuse and privilege, you should do that now.  It's way better written and more important than anything I'm going to come up with today.)  I'm going to try to write these posts more often, as they're a relatively easy way to get some of my thoughts out and to keep up with the habit of blogging.  I don't, however, promise weekly.

The Hiss - Insomnia:

Insomnia has been a lifelong enemy of mine, and for some reason it has decided to be particularly bad lately.  Most nights I wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and then I lie in bed afterwards for anywhere from one to three hours, completely awake.  On bad nights, the timing of falling back asleep corresponds to the timing of the cats crawling into bed, and then there is no additional sleep for me.  The interrupted sleep has left me profoundly tired - on Friday night, I started whining about needing to go to bed at 9 PM, which is very unusual for a night owl like me.

The strange thing is, I don't know why the insomnia is so bad.  Usually I suffer from insomnia when I'm under stress or unhappy about something, but I don't feel like either of those things are the case right now.  Yes, there is some stress associated with starting work as a real doctor, but it feels very mild compared to what I'd feared.  And I'm not unhappy!  I'm enjoying work even more than I had expected; the girlfriend and I have been doing lots of fun things in our spare time; and I'm getting better about avoiding the trap of staying up too late at night.  I just don't get it!

I've been exercising again recently (more about that later in the week), and I'm hoping that will help turn things around.  Because I'm tired of staring at the ceiling when I should be asleep!

The Purr - Long Weekends:

There is something so unbelievably luxurious about having three days off in a row.  I love having one day for fun things and one day for necessary things and then yet another day for whatever I choose to do.  This has been a particularly good long weekend, as we haven't had any weddings to go to (I am so done with weddings).  I've finished my book (more about Chasing the Scream in a future post), finished knitting my first sock (and started my second), introduced my girlfriend to Treme in honour of the 10-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, played board games, tried four different hamburgers for Burger Week, and eaten an amazing celebratory dinner at my favourite tapas restaurant.  And it's not over yet!

At the moment, I'm still in pj's, and I'm keeping my girlfriend company while she makes zucchini loaf.  We have an oldies station playing in the background, and we're chatting about everything from the tragedy of the Syrian refuge crisis to the awkwardness of junior high.  It's everything I need in life.

Check In - Home and Hobbies

About a month ago, I wrote a post about my goals for "Home and Hobbies" and promised to check in after starting work to let everyone know how things are going.  Here's the update:

Have two knitting projects on the go at all times:

I've been using knitting as a way of relaxing in the evenings (when I'm not mindlessly surfing the internet), and I've made some good progress on my knitting projects.  I recently finished knitting a baby sweater for a friend, and I just need to sew the hood and sleeves for it to be completely finished.  Her son is now seven months old, so it's a good thing I opted for the 18-month size!  I'm also almost to the end of knitting my first sock, which has been a six-month-long exercise in frustration; I may never knit the second one.

Now that I've finished knitting the baby sweater, I've essentially only got one knitting project on the go, so I need to find something else to work on.  I'm thinking maybe something mindless, like a prayer shawl (maybe a Christmas gift for my Mom?), or something big, like a cozy sweater for myself.  Ravelry here I come!

Cook regularly with my girlfriend:

This one has been fairly successful.  We have a ton of produce from our CSA share (too much zucchini), so we've been doing a lot of cooking in an attempt to avoid wasting the beautiful organic vegetables.  I also finally got our BBQ cleaned off, so we've been eating a lot of charred meat.  I feel a bit like a caveman.

Read for pleasure every day:

This one got off to a very slow start due to exhaustion and my unfortunate technology addiction, but it's starting to pick up.  After starting a few books that didn't hold my interest, I finally found "Chasing the Scream", which is a fascinating book about how the prohibition of drugs has led to the worldwide drug war.  If you have even a passing interest in drug laws or racism or gang violence, you should read this book.

Now that I have a good book, I'm finding some time almost every day for reading.  Unfortunately, I'm approaching the end of this book, so I'm not sure what I'll read next.  Any "must-read" books that you'd suggest?

Keep up with my finances:

I've probably been doing too well with this.  I've continued to track my budget on my iPhone, and I've started tracking all of my billings in an Excel file so that I can confirm that I'm being paid properly for the work I do.  All of the monitoring has made me a bit obsessed with money, and I'm finding that I get unreasonably anxious whenever I spend money or drop below a budget surplus that I've arbitrarily decided is "enough".  I'm hoping that the anxiety will wane as I get a better sense of my income and as I make progress with paying off my debt.

Spend time daily and weekly on keeping the apartment clean and organized:

Remember when I said "This will be a challenge.  A huge challenge."?  I was correct in my assessment.  Cleaning and tidying have been the lowest priorities in my life lately, so the clutter and disorganization are starting to return.  It's been made even worse by the fact that my girlfriend has been going through her own work transition, leaving her with neither the energy nor the motivation to help out much.

We have been doing a few things right, thankfully.  We've been keeping up with the dishes and cleaning the kitchen semi-regularly, which means that there is usually space in the kitchen for cooking and eating.  I've also been doing laundry every Sunday morning, so my laundry pile is small and I always have clothing to wear.  I've also been filing my mail as soon as it comes in, which is keeping me more on top of bills and other important things than I usually am.  So all in all, not a total failure with this goal.

Any goals that you've been working on lately?  How are they going?

The Weekly Hiss and Purr - August 7 Edition

Oh this week.  This week has been one full of angst, coming from a variety of sources.  Even though I'm still on vacation (yay), I feel like I could list a dozen or so hisses without much effort.  Bah.

Angst is soooo overrated.  Take a nap, Mom.

The (Biggest) Hiss - Anxiety:

One of the best things about this vacation has been how relaxed I've been.  Until recently, I was waking up feeling refreshed and looking forward to all the great things the day had in store.  I even looked relaxed - my skin was tanned (as much as my Northern European ancestry permits), my hair was longer and curlier than it had been in years (the word "mullet" comes to mind), and my clothing choices were comfortable, if not bordering on vagabond.  

And then, a week ago, I decided to get my hair cut so that I would look slightly put together for the wedding I attended last Saturday.  And it was as if everything changed.  Going back to my "work hairstyle" seemed to signal that it was time to go back to work, or at the very least to start stressing out about it.  Since then, I've been experiencing increasing bouts of panic as I come to terms with the fact that I will be the one in charge starting August 17.

It doesn't help that there are still major issues up in the air...like my license.  Everything is happening at a snail's pace because it's summer, and despite doing things in what I thought was lots of time, I am still waiting on a number of important documents that are required for me to work.  And I have only five business days left until my first day of work.  Aaaaaah.

(Please be patient while I go and vomit.)

The Purr - Reading:

The biggest thing I need right now to keep myself sane is distraction from thinking about work (and from hitting refresh on my email program to see if anything is happening with my license).  Enter reading!  As I previously blogged about, I just finished reading Gretchen Rubin's book "Better Than Before".  I also have her book "Happier at Home" sitting in my to-read pile, but for a change of pace, I've decided to start with Barbara Kingsolver's book "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle".  This book tells about her family's journey of moving across the country and trying to eat locally for a year.  I'm only one chapter in, but I'm loving her writing style and her exploration of all the issues (environmental, economic, health) related to what we choose to eat.

There are so many more things that I want to read!  I have a giant stack of books from the library on my coffee table, plus a list on Goodreads and another list in my iPhone.  I need more hours in the day!

What are you reading this week?

Habits

As I've written about before, part of my motivation for taking so much time off this summer has been to catch up on all the things I've neglected over the past five years:  finances, household organization, paperwork (why is there so much paperwork?), and cleaning BBQs, amongst other things.  While I've been spending hours of my precious vacation time on these not so enjoyable tasks, I've been thinking a lot about how to keep up with these tasks on an ongoing basis, rather than waiting until things get desperate to play catch up.  As part of my attempt to figure out how to do things better, I recently read Gretchen Rubin's book "Better Than Before: Mastering The Habits of Our Everday Lives".

This book explores the ways in which we adopt (or fail to adopt) new habits, with a focus on internal and external barriers to making positive changes.  Included in it is a whole chapter on "loopholes", which basically describes what goes on in my mind whenever I try to change myself.  (I'm an expert at coming up with reasons not to follow through on my goals.)

What I found most interesting about the book was Rubin's categorization of people into four groups - Upholders, Questioners, Obligers, and Rebels - based on how they respond to inner and outer expectations.  I would really like to be an Upholder (one who meets both inner and outer expectations; Sarah from theshubox strikes me as a perfect example), but after reading the descriptions and doing the quiz at the end, I had to resign myself to the fact that I'm an Obliger (one who meets outer expectations but not inner).  In the book, Rubin writes of Obligers that "Because Obligers resist inner expectations, it's difficult for them to self-motivate - to work on a Ph.D. thesis, to attend networking events, to get their car serviced.  Obligers depend on external accountability, with consequences such as deadlines, late fees, or the fear of letting other people down."

Difficult to self-motivate.  Yup.  That's me.  I could complete my 21 days of regular blogging just by giving examples of how I've had difficulty self-motivating throughout my life*.  My Master's degree is the perfect example - it took me forever to get experiments done and papers written, to the point where I nearly drove my supervisor crazy.  I actually told her once that if she wanted me to do something she just needed to give me a deadline.  And it worked!  When I had something external to motivate me, I got my work done without difficulty - even if the "deadline" was entirely arbitrary.

Which brings me to a dilemma.  As an attending, I will decide everything that I do.  I will decide how many patients to see and when to do dictations and whether or not to do research (etc, etc).  There will be no external expectations, aside from some very minimal requirements for teaching and clinical duties, which will not be difficult to meet.  How, as an Obliger, do I not allow my life to devolve into chaos in the absence of external expectations?

I still don't know the answer to this one.  Maybe I need to re-read the book.

*And then no one would ever read my blog again.