Tuesday 27 November 2007

GIRLS WHO ARE BOYS WHO LIKE BOYS TO BE GIRLS

Dear Rita,

Chauvinism is more clear and irritating than ever. Because not only they pretend that they have given same rights and opportunities, but also they believe that we have believed them! And I truly prefer to be obliged to be a slave than being a slave while others think I've chosen it…as much as I prefer to see the desert without hallucinating a long lost oasis.

Along with these thoughts, your article also reminds me of a book that I have started reading recently (and stopped quickly). It is from a famous Greek novelist and successful politician; Mimis Androulakis was always a writer dedicated on the women’s side and is well-known as devoted fan of feminism and equal rights’ movements. However, for some reason I can never finish his books…there is something galling in the way he writes and unwraps his story.

His most resent novel has the title ‘Feminine Poker’ and it tells the story of a young and very pretty woman that made a very successful Hedge Fund and became an ruthless businesswoman. The story generally tries to prove how clever women in finance behave. How well they could make it and how much better they could manipulate the situations in the economic world. The mistake that this book is making (as well as all other Mimi’s books in my opinion) is that it tries to prove all these by just saying them; while what is really confirms are all the below:

Women are good in something because they have learned it from men (the young woman in his story has an erotic relationship with a man 30 years older than her, who was a successful banker and who teaches her all the tricks. I should also mention here that in Mimi’s books there is always an erotic relationship between a young girl and an old man which doesn’t sound very feministic, no?)

The woman in the story recruits for her Hedge Fund only other women; because she believes in them(!). Why does this woman feel the need to advertise this ‘women’s power’ idea and does not recruit whoever is more successful and promising in the interviews? Why the book expresses a racially prejudiced attitude towards men? Does the writer want to highlight something by stupidly exaggerating and overdrawing our attention to his beliefs?

The novel apart from telling this specific story, it also tries to establish its arguments by referring all these women that were, or still being, successful in the finance world…and is doing both in no more than 300 pages, as far as I can remember,..maybe less..Which is so fair because if a writer would like to dedicate a work in successful men in the finance; then he would might need to write a encyclopedia.

And as you also said, why in hell another successful businessman is writing for this issue? It is very offensive to me; like they are trying to cheat and show as a different world with intention and confidence that's all we need (men writing these books) to feel equal! And how on earth did it occur to them that we would like to get fucked with old suckers like them (and not with pretty boys in our age or even younger), because we get fascinated by their wisdom?

So yes Rita, I truly agree with you and thank you for make me spend half an hour in my work (morning coffee) to write this…I should also send this to my father with the hope that he will stop buying me Mimi’s Androulakis books, however his good intentions and scarce truthful belief that women (like his daughter maybe) can make all the things better…

Monday 26 November 2007

Think, think and then think again....

Another Monday, another day, another week... another life, another door closed,... where is the one that's opened?

Questions to be asked, or answers that have not yet been delivered? I am always stuck somewhere inbetween... How many other people out there, might feel the same feeling (feel a feeling - superb!) from time to time?

I was reading an article the other day about women at work, but relax! It was no different to thousands of other articles of similar content, that is, it was full of bitching about either sex (depending on the author's sex of course!), highly inaccurate, full of abrupt generalizations and taboos. And my question is so simply as this: WHY DOES "WOMEN AT WORK" STILL MAKE THE NEWS?

Why on earth, do I catch myself wondering whether I have equal rights with men at work, when we all had the same shit together, went through the same exams, in the same universities, and did as well as they did?

I have never felt undermined by my classmates, my fellow students, or any of my professors for being a woman. Nobody ever warned me back then about all these
clichés...

Not to mention all these incredible books, written by allegedly gurus of the field! (Sorry, guys, what's your field of expertise once again?! Didn't quite catch the name I am afraid....). Just to bring a random example, (please note that I have not read the book and do not intend to for reasons that I explain below), while browsing Amazon's book section, the title "
Dos and Taboos Around the World for Women in Business".

Says who? First question that jumped into my mind. I read on... Obviously, I am terribly intrigued (or annoyed... one might think) not because of the content, not because someone wants to help women or warn them for what's out there expecting them, but because someone felt the need to write such a book! And because a lot of women also feel the need to read it, thus giving it a purpose and justifying its existence.

The book is signed by four authors (researchers? sociologists? nah.....)! Three women and one guy sat all together and decided to write this book to share their own point of view regarding this "issue", as it is so often called! I did some further research, only to find out that the top guy (of course the main author was the guy - notice the irony here?! - is... (first credential) an experienced businessman! And a credible author? With one of his books being used as a textbook in colleges!

So, it's true! Isn't it? Not only there is discrimination, but it is also NOT used as textbook in colleges... You might think that I write this post being a little bit upset(i.e. angry). Actually, you might be correct. I had been thinking about this myself... but my sex has suddenly become my most discussed attribute since I graduated and entered the adult professional work. (Excuse me, but isn't all this a bit childish?)

And that is what REALLY GRINDS MY GEARS!!!








Tuesday 6 November 2007

Dear friend Rita,
What is there to be written in a blog named ‘a thought experiment’? It sounds like an invitation to leave your soul naked in public view, or like a game that will start innocently and then suddenly it will turn up to a saw (title’s German influence?) that will ruin your brains…
In any case this is something that YOU began and then I have to follow…because you make my life more interesting (with all those unlucky things that are happening to you) and all those ‘experiments’ that you are trying to yourself. And Rita this experimental life is what I want to live and this experimental thought is what we are left with; sitting here, paralyzed from the wrist down (you still need to do some occasional typing!), unable to see anything else than a screen, or two, or three, or four, or five, or six, or seven….
So yes, thinking perpetually is the only that we can do to entertain ourselves and to remain alive…
So count me in!! Let the game begin…