On “Office Housework”

I really wish I’d read this or this before going to my last therapy session.

For the past month or so, I’ve been having trouble sleeping. I’m someone who can sleep just about anywhere [except, rather inconveniently on planes — I think it’s something about the recycled air]. I am rarely troubled by insomnia. But for a week in January, I was experiencing very fitful sleep. I tried going to bed earlier and earlier but still found myself getting up later and later and being exhausted all day. I would wince every time I heard a new notification on my phone until I was about as conditioned as a future serial killer’s pet.

Watch President Obama Break Down Stereotypes About Toys for Girls and Boys

via Slate 

Help Rewrite the Rules for Dating on WFMU Tonight at 7pm

Andrea Silenzi has a new live show tonight and wants help rewriting the rules for dating!  Give her a call at 201-209-9368 or tweet @andreasilenzi.

For your consideration:

1. Meeting people.
2. Pre-date communication.
3. The “Wait 3 Days Rule.”
4. The first date — the beginning.
5. Paying.
6. The first date — the end.
7. Early relationship.
8. Meeting friends/family.

My thoughts:

On Dating Equality

I am fairly new to dating.  In my 20s, which I’m guessing is when you’re meant to casually date, I spent the first few years having Boatloads of Fun [Corp.] followed by a 6-year relationship that ended just shy of my 31st birthday. Now in my 30s and new to dating, I feel a bit like an alien, observing long-held social customs I cannot fathom.

“You’ll make a great wife one day”

Thus spoke a 26-year old progressive male upon my referring to something as “too expensive.”  Apparently even staunchly anti-charter school Democrats believe most women are spendthrifts whose ultimate goal in life is to land a husband who can afford the lifestyle to which they would like to become accustomed.

Standing on the chips on the shoulders of female giants

A friend recently asked me in response to a previous post: “what do ovaries have to do with orders”?  This, right around International Women’s Day, made me think of the gender wage gap, an issue brought up often and passionately, and one that does not have a single simple cause or solution.

On the “being a woman in finance” meme

I have worked at a few finance shops since I graduated in a down market in 2002.  I started out as a receptionist at an insurance underwriting firm and after a year or so was given the option of becoming the office manager or an underwriter.  I chose the latter, which was certainly of more interest to me than ordering supplies and overseeing admins, though the versatility and earning power of underwriters is debatable when compared to that of office managers.  A few years later, when I gave notice at my third job, my highest ranking boss was upset not because I was leaving but because he was planning on leaving soon as well and wanted to take me with him to be his office manager.