“I want to live in a world where little girls are not pinkified, but where little girls who like pink are not punished for it, either. We can certainly talk about the social pressures surrounding gender roles, and the concerns that people have when they see girls and young women who appear to be forced into performances of femininity by the society around them, but let’s stop acting like they have no agency and free will. Let’s stop acting like women who choose to be feminine are somehow colluders, betraying the movement, bamboozled into thinking that they want to be feminine. Let’s stop denying women their own autonomy by telling them that their expressions of femininity are bad and wrong.

Antifemininity is misogynist. What you are saying when you engage in this type of rhetoric is that you think things traditionally associated with women are wrong. Which is misogynist. By telling feminine women that they don’t belong in the feminist movement, you are reinforcing the idea that to be feminine and a woman is wrong, that women who want to be taken seriously need to be more masculine, because most people view gender presentation in binary ways. This rewards the ‘one of the boys’ type rhetoric I encounter all over the place from self-avowed feminists who seem to think that bashing on women is a good way to prove how serious they are when it comes to caring about women and bringing men into the feminist movement.”

Get Your Anti-Femininity Out Of My Feminism by s.e. smith (via nerdiestofbears)

Think I’m dealing with this right now.  In the old feminist guard where anything “girlie” is seen as not empowering, so we must use script font that looks awful and old-fashioned and can be defined as old guard, but is actually quite illegible, and did I mention old-fashioned?  Yeah.   Yet, bemoaning the fact that you can’t get younger women into the organization.  Start with a logo that looks youthful, not like something that grandma would like and use.  

I actually also got asked if I didn’t like the font because younger women couldn’t read “cursive”.   I’m not kidding.  The condescension was more than a little palpable, and someone else stepped up at that moment and said, “No, my daughter agrees with her on the logo and says its awful.” It is.  

(Source: thechocolatebrigade, via cristinalucila)

“

Let’s look at this decision a different way. According to one ex-“Yahoo” (the way Yahoo employees describe themselves, which may be one thing that needs to change) who was quoted in Business Insider, “For what it’s worth, I support the no working from home rule. There’s a ton of abuse of that at Yahoo. Something specific to the company.”

….

Another source who spoke to Kara Swisher at All Things D reported that Mayer had tried the carrot approach by offering free food and iPhones (!) at work, but was getting nowhere, as she saw Yahoo employees coming in later and leaving earlier than employees at other Silicon Valley competitors.

Any leader who has had to transform a company or an institution understands that culture change is essential. People have to think differently about their jobs and their employers before they will do their jobs differently. Moreover, when a ship is going down, it is not unreasonable to demand all hands on deck. Mayer tried to go with the existing telecommuting policy, which apparently works elsewhere in Silicon Valley, but concluded that it was contributing to the culture that she needed to change. That does not mean she will not return to that policy if and when Yahoo! recovers. And in the meantime, I for one hope to see much more on-site day care on Yahoo!’s premises.

”

 - Marissa Mayer’s Job Is to Be CEO—Not to Make Life Easier for Working Moms

I still think she sets a terrible tone for working mothers and women all across the globe, but… I agree that it is possible that Yahoo’s internal culture was suffering under “too much of a good thing”.  Since I am not an active member of the Yahoo workforce, we’ll have to wait and see.  The problem is, there wil be little fanfare if employees are able to return to the telecommuting policy at a later time.  

But I do also hope that, since she has provided a nursery next to her office for her own use, that she would start to establish space for more on-site day care centers for other women who are not able to afford live-in nannies.  If the goal is employee satisfaction and an overall healthy company, you have to begin by taking care of people and if you’re asking them to rearrange their lives, you’ve got to do what you can to understand the changes you’re asking them to undertake and do what you can to meet them halfway.  A CEO that is a woman and a mother should know and understand that.  

…And, I’m sorry, but as a woman who was probably vetted far more seriously than her male counterparts, who had to promise that her pregnancy wouldn’t interfere with the company’s bottom line - doesn’t she have a duty, not just to the company to succeed, but to both men and women to show that companies can start being loyal to their workers again… that they can have a heart where their employees are concerned.  That a company that invests in its employees, has employees that invest in the company. 

If Mayer is really trying to turn things around and engage these employees, she needs to start by bringing the people together, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally, too.  Make that more fun, than a chore.  

“Mayer was subject to an absurd amount of scrutiny and concern-trolling over taking the big job while pregnant, and her response was to insist that she wouldn’t take much time off at all. That’s her prerogative, but this move suggests not only that she thinks what worked for her will be right for all of her employees, but that she wants to telegraph that she won’t be soft on everyone just because she’s female. In a now-notorious interview Mayer did for the forthcoming “Makers” documentary on PBS, Mayer said she doesn’t think she’s a feminist because she doesn’t have “sort of the chip on the shoulder that sometimes comes with that. I think it’s too bad but I think that feminism has become in many ways a more negative word.” She added, “I think that there is more good that comes out of positive energy around that than negative energy.” That implies that merely acknowledging discrimination and existing gender roles in the world, and trying to work with them, is allowing yourself to be defeated by them. But the true defeatism lies in thinking that you don’t need policies that help everyone be able to participate, including working from home, and then wondering why your turnover is so high or your employees are so miserable.”

Free your workers, Yahoo! - Salon.com (via dendroica)

This latest decision from Yahoo proves what most of us that were up in arms when Melissa Mayer refused to take maternity leave for longer than a week were right. What isn’t being reported anywhere I’m this recent Yahoo decision is that Melissa Mayer’s husband is, if memory serves, independently wealthy, though much of that due to his own making, however, he is able to stay at home and see to the baby’s needs. Mayer is going to insist that her female workers observe a same professional life that she has, without any of the additional benefits that she has available made available to them.

It’s wonderful that Mayer felt she could return to work a week after giving birth, but she’s lucky she had access to world renowned prenatal care, and obviously no complications from pregnancy or delivery. It’s wonderful that Mayer made choices that were suitable for her, but she is taking away the ability to make those same choices for both women and men and doing what they can do for their families.

One additional point, there was a study conducted that stated that brainstorming in groups acctually hinders creativity. There’s no real reason why with broadband mobile access, something that someone working at a company like Yahoo would have in the home can’t be used for tele-conferences in place of the real time physical presence.

This decisions makes me sangey. (Sad and angry.)

(via dendroica)