Dominique Strauss-Kahn: why French women put up with it - Telegraph

[thinking_lotus]

You could tell something unscripted was happening on the set of Thursday night's prime-time discussion programme on Dominique Strauss-Kahn by the stony faces of the male guests. There were several top newspaper and news magazines editors, a former Justice Minister and president of the Supreme Court, and a couple of politicians. The lone woman on

Comments

[nwhiker]

I will never forget standing up in front of the classroom, in my optics class, and being told that half my grade would for my performance on the oral exam I was about to take, the other half would be based on what the teacher and the GUYS IN THE CLASS felt about my fuckability.

I barely passed optics, despite solving the problem I was given perfectly. I failed fuckability. The other woman in the class, forewarned, had come in a little red dress and 4in heels. She passed with flying colours, despite messing up her actual, oh, exam.

Second semester, same teacher, same situation. I showed up in a very low cut sweater. I was disgusted with myself, but I passed with honours.

[thinking_lotus]

Was this in France?

Or just in the 80s?

Yeah, stuff like that totally sucked. I never encountered anything quite as overt. I mostly encountered professors who felt it was their job to help me discover my "sensual side" which had apparently gone missing.

[nwhiker]

Yeah, in France.

To this day, it makes me feel sick. There were other instances, but that was the one, because of the participation by my CLASSMATES, that was the worse. It was very difficult to subsequently work with them. To say the least.

[thinking_lotus]

I hate hate hate so much the idea that women have to be evaluated on looks first. Hate. I always wanted to score on my brains, I didn't care what I looked like. Having to look good is such a waste of time.

This is why I like working in a library, nobody cares.

Hey, you should get a library science degree! Everyone wants science librarians.