Notices by Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD) (iris@neuromatch.social)

Been a while since I tried to make coffee by pouring whole beans directly into the mug.

Unrelatedly: a thing I like to do when I have zero brainpower is adversarial object design (usually of coffee mugs). Like, if you told someone to make you a coffee mug, and they hated you, what would you get back?

Inspired by https://www.theuncomfortable.com/ which is my favorite art collection ever.

@MrHedmad removing op as she clearly indicated your comment was not welcome in the first place --

Why? Why are you choosing this battle? Believe it or not, this is not about you. It's about women's experiences of meeting friction that is created expressly to slow them down and tire them out. Anecdotal is exactly the right mode of information for sharing these experiences, and sharing them has real purpose.

It doesn't matter if you individually match the stereotype (and for the record, your response is not helping your credibility here). It's not about you.

And it's not being handled poorly if it resonates with women and gives them space to imagine and create a better reality. It's. Not. About. You.

@marc_veld oof. As much as I agree these problems are problems, I can't disagree more strongly with the quoted response, “But you have to understand what’s under your control. You can control your well-being, your reactions to things and you can influence what’s around you.” You can exercise *some* control over these things, but when your wellbeing is suffering because of food insecurity, you can't meditate your way out of being harmed by that. If you're having panic attacks because you have to work in an abusive environment, you don't have control over that reaction, by definition. It's harmful to shift the responsibility to the individual in these contexts.

Some of the interventions mentioned are, as intended, empowering. And I'm sure many researchers do benefit from yoga and painting classes, because they're awesome. But that's the epitome of treating the symptom. Institutions are quick to adopt these programs because they don't require systemic change and they shift responsibility to the individual. They really straddle the line between helpful and counterproductive, because allowing any institution to cite these wellness initiatives as progress toward researcher wellness delays and distracts from the real work.

Basically, teaching people to survive hostile conditions is something very distinct from improving conditions.