Welcome to Musings - The Loom Room Blog

In this quarter’s Philosophy Magazine, there is an article asking Where Are All the Women?  Whilst there are roughly even numbers of men and women studying philosophy at undergraduate level, that number begins to have a male bias at MA level, and more so at PhD level, leading to only 18% of women to men ratio on academic staff, including full and part-time lecturing.   The article posits a few theories of why this might be, and in the process of discussion the point was raised that philosophy at a more advanced level is much more aggressive, with the audience actively prepared to shred a lecturer’s hypotheses and disprove the argument. 

This combative approach suddenly brought to mind a hen weekend I went on about 8 years ago.  A group of about 16 women, ranging in age from late teens to me, the eldest at 39, turned up at a historic house and stayed in several of their beautiful cottages for the weekend.  One of our various activities was Paintball.  I know more about paintball now because my son, now 20, is an avid paintballer, playing in several leagues at quite an advanced level, and it’s really a strategy game as well as physical and ‘hard’. 

When we turned up at the paintball site, we were met by two strapping lads in their early twenties who confessed to us that they’d never had an all-female paintball party before.  They’d dealt with mixed groups of school children, executives on team-building exercises, and lots of all-male groups, but never all women.  What transpired was really interesting from a philosophical and psychological viewpoint. 

We were split up into our teams and told the objective.  We had our little team talks and worked out our tactics, then went out to begin the game.  I already knew that when paintballs hit you they hurt, so I was prepared to be bruised, and the lads told us that they would sting and you’d know you’d been hit.  The first game commenced. 

I’m not an aggressive or confrontational person and attack is not something that comes naturally to me, so I elected to guard our flag and defend it against all comers, and I was quite good at that, staying in hiding, and positioning myself to get a great overall view so that I could fire at anyone coming close to our flag.  Another woman, whose day-job was a city trader, was the natural leader – she was assertive, quick to assess situations and deploy her troops, but the rest of the foot-soldiers – the cannon fodder, if you like – were not so keen to put themselves in the line of fire.  The game must have been going for all of five minutes, and you could see most people trying to keep out of firing range and working their way round to behind enemy lines on both sides.  Then one of the women decided this was pussy-footing around and she charged.  I can’t remember now which side she was on, and it really didn’t matter, because she got well and truly hammered, fired upon by several people, and she yelped and fell over.  That’s when the difference between the sexes was most apparent. 

She was obviously hurt, and lay clutching her leg and her arm.  There was a few seconds total silence, then everyone came out of hiding, rushing up to her and asking if she was alright, where had she been hit, did she need help, etc…  Looking back, it was amazing.  Regardless of competition, the overriding reaction was one of empathy, of wanting to help, of wanting to co-operate to solve a situation. 

The paintball guys were incredulous, and somewhat dismayed, I think.  They had to rethink their whole strategy of how to set the games because the underlying primal competition element and ‘do or die’ mindset that features in the male and mixed games was totally inappropriate for our all-female group.  Obviously, if we had been trained as a team, with a specific objective and strong enough incentive, this wouldn’t have happened, but I was proud to be part of a bunch of women whose first thoughts were to help each other, regardless of which side anyone was on. 

So, in reading about the aggressive approach of some branches of philosophy that seems to put many women off progressing further, I am not surprised.  If the profession of philosophy adopts co-operation strategies rather than combative strategies, then they might see a different result, and be the richer (philosophically speaking) for it. 

I may have mentioned before that I am a Psychologies reader.  This morning, whilst reading a piece on the healing properties of trees with my early morning cuppa, I read a short paragraph from a reader who said “I was drawn to a large tree standing alone.  It had already shed most of its leaves and seemed ready for what would come next.  I realised that I was too.  Nothing new can come along if you don’t make room for it.”

This last phrase hooked me in.  It ran around my head whilst I was out walking Charlie and as it was a misty, chilly morning, I ruminated inwards instead of looking around me. 

I realised that she is totally right!  And that this is what I try to do in my daily life.  However, I rarely succeed because I pile loads of stuff to do onto myself and before I know where I am, it’s the end of the day and I haven’t stopped.  I suspect that is what most of us do.  I try to start each new day with a clean slate and allow myself breathing and thinking space, but somehow that time is squeezed out.

Even now, when I’d decided just 10 minutes ago to sit down and savour my cup of tea, I now find myself absent-mindedly slurping it whilst writing this!  It made me stop and realise just how much we fill our days – well, at least I do. 

I thought maybe that perhaps this is something that self-employed people working on their own do most, but then I thought back to my office days and remembered that I would do exactly the same thing, but that the pressure on my shoulders then was fulfilling someone else’s brief, whilst now it’s my own.  In a workplace there is the social aspect of a coffee break or a tea break – nominally, at least, although many workplaces pressurise employees into keeping working and not socialising.  But when you work for yourself, and when you work alone, you pressurise yourself into keeping going because you want, and need, to succeed. 

I know myself that when my day includes time of non-work mode, it seems lighter somehow – like white space on a page – that room to reflect and relax.  If a page is full of closely typed dense paragraphs, it seems such a chore to read it, but if the same material is set out over several pages, with more space between words, more paragraphs and larger margins, it seems somehow easier to read – no matter that the content is exactly the same!  That mind’s eye image of a day reflects the same process – areas of no appointments or scheduled tasks lighten the day’s image and makes it more open to influence or serendipity. 

So that’s today’s aim.  Keep that lighter feeling by incorporating short periods of down-time – space in which anything could happen – or nothing could happen, and either will be ok. 

I love words.  They have the power to harm or to heal, to empower or to reduce, to inspire or to deflate. 

I try to write a journal most days and I do that in the mornings, before the day’s tasks and “must dos” get in the way.  It’s a stream of consciousness thing – quite often it can be the events of the previous day – or thoughts I’ve had whilst out walking Charlie (my dog) in the fields.  This morning I exchanged casual comments with a couple of people whilst walking along the pavement.  The first was a chatty, friendly ‘your dog is just gorgeous’ comment, guaranteed to make me smile and feel great! The second was with a neighbour.  It was just comparing the weather of today, beautiful, sunny but cold, with yesterday’s freezing, windy rain and yet, a chance comment of my neighbour’s, saying he was far too sensible to get caught in yesterday’s weather (unlike me)had me chuntering away to myself as Charlie and I continued our walk.  Somehow I had felt that comment as a reflection on my intelligence and I thought of all the clever responses I could have made which would have left him suitably chastened (or not!) when I suddenly pulled myself up short. 

Why was I feeling so defensive?  What was I doing, allowing a probably innocent if perhaps thoughtless comment churn up my stomach and bring me down when I should be enjoying the beauty of the day around me?   It was quite an effort to move my thoughts away from the negative reaction I was experiencing and direct them into appreciative appraisal of the sun and shadows on the fields, the beauty of the remaining leaves gently fluttering down to earth, the easy elegance of Charlie running across the fields.  But once I had focussed my attention on positive things that were happening right now, I felt so much better and my thoughts then turned to a sudden inspiration for another book idea. 

When I got home I started thinking about how quickly I had allowed myself to be brought down and that it took a focussed determined effort to pick myself back up again and turn my thoughts to positive things, and I realised how much we are affected by seemingly random or thoughtless comments.  As a teacher, it is something I’m always aware of when chatting to students.  As a student, I know how vulnerable and defensive I feel when trying something outside my comfort zone, and in that frame of mind how easily one can go from being excited to being depressed and feeling worthless and useless. 

It also made me reflect on how easily close relationships can change from happy and open to defensive, usually by a simple misunderstanding and how it is so true that to ensure good communication we need to seek first to understand, and then to be understood.  So, for today at least, I am going to try to listen first of all, then think before I speak…..