A thread started by a man to throw a few things around.

yes, it's like the idea that men should always be taller than women - there's a direct correlation between how much taller the man is, and how much money the movie grosses.

We are taught so much that men will be big, strong protective etc that it's hard NOT to find those features attractive.
So we go for older men, and then we find that it doesn't make financial sense to keep earning once we have children, and so the stereotypes continue.

for those saying that their own friends/experiences are different - statistics say otherwise. women still marry older (if only slightly older) guys, and that means they've had a head start on the career ladder. Also, if it's been a couple that have been together for a while, she may well adapt her career to his even before marriage, by taking a lower paid job that is closer to him & his job, rather than going for the higher paid job, no matter how far away it is.

Sorry I don't intend on derailing the thread I promise but a quick google shows the national graduate salary for those who manage to get above minimum wage jobs is likely to be 18k. I don't think advocating that everyone simply gets really really highly paid jobs is a realistic solution. And it would be a disaster for the economy!

Kickass, you'd have to get the film industry to adopt sensible criteria for their characters' partner choices - like compatibility! At least British soaps usually feature matched couples (including raging dysfunctionality) but the US mostly seems to portray wives as much younger, thinner and several shades lighter than their husbands.

I read somewhere that, now the Hollywood moguls have hit 50, they've become utterly obsessed with ageing male stars behaving very youthfully and getting off with women less than half their age.

Good idea to point this out to teenagers, yes: as often as possible!

Maybe its just me, but amongst my friends there isn't an obvious older man/younger woman thing going on. One is like this, a few where the woman is older and a lot where they are the same age +or- 1/2 years.

£60k as a starting salary may not be unusual amongst the people you know. Statisically though it is hugely unusual

msrisotto - not that unusual. My first job was the same - £60k. I'm in the legal profession. And in my case my DH did give up work when we had children.

I teach teenagers, and the other day we were having a discussion about what age you should take on certain responsibilities. which then morphed into would you marry a younger man/older woman.

of the 18 in the class, 16 were VERY set on the traditional way to do things. They are 13/14 years old, and already they are completely indoctrinated into the stereotypes.

Whilst I think that there are certain differences between males & females, (e.g. girls do hit puberty earlier on average, so their maturity is influenced by that), there is also a huge amount of social conditioning. I think that life experiences also affect maturity. So people shouldn't be looking at the age of future partners, more at their experiences & maturity.

It's just possible that getting rid of the concerns about age, and focussing more on personality could lesson the older man/younger woman stereotype.

First qualified job paying 60k! Xenia, what on earth does your daughter do? This is an incredibly unusual situation.

I would also support board quotas

Me too. It's so blatantly clear it's the only way to gain parity. I'm astonished there's so much resistance to it ... amongst women.

"Every single woman felt terribly grateful anyone was prepared to take her on. " This is true also for lots of women who have taken time off to raise a family then go back to a job market that is stacked against them.

Please don't throw things in the FWR section. It's rude.

This was the Nov 2011 survey in the press about young women in the UK now earning more than men. "Women in their 20s now earn a solid 3.6% more on average than men their age, after narrowly overtaking them for the first time last year". http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/27/young-women-earning-more-men

It's very encouraging. I see it all around me. My daughter's first qualified job pay is about £60k (mid 20s). Women are getting better qualifications than men. I don't often meet men who earn as much as I do either.

I am not saying women should not continue to fight to earn more. Some are pathetic at asking for more pay. An MBA class were asked their next job salaries. All the men got more. Every single man had negotiated hard for more pay than offered. Every single woman felt terribly grateful anyone was prepared to take her on. Women need to realise their worth and negotiate hard. I often walk away from work which does not pay enough and direct people off to cheaper people. I work for myself. I would also support board quotas at least for a few years.

I still think a lot of the issue is not discrimination at work it is women marrying up so when they decide whose wage comes first it is the man's. If the women married non earning artists and writers or the local dustbin man or whatever they might well find they succeed in their careers as the husband is not likely to say yes dear give up your £100k a year salary to mind the baby and we will survive on my £13k a year wage no problem.

Sorry, wasn't trying to depress you

Yeah definitely not the whole picture. Just read those statistic links. Made me feel v depressed at the idea that I am very unlikely to get the earning power I had back.

I agree it is an issue, but I don't agree it totally explains the pay gap. I think it is 1 contributory factor

I can't believe I'm about to agree with you Xenia , but I think you do have something re. the marrying up. In addition to the things you said, I feel there is the cautionary idea that if you earn more than your husband you will have trouble in the marriage. That was certainly the case in my marriage. I was scared all the time of making XP feel that he was inadequate.

The norm of the older man / younger woman definitely has something to answer for re. the pay gap.

Xenia, I am not sure where you get your stats about wage differentials? The Gov ONS survey shows that men do earn more than women at all ages, although the differences are larger in the 40-60 year age group.

www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/ashe/annual-survey-of-hours-and-earnings/ashe-results-2011/ashe-statistical-bulletin-2011.html#tab-Earnings-by-age-group

Also this link takes you to information on the differential in pay in a list of occupations between men and women. Although there are a small number where women are paid more than men, in most men are paid more than wome. And that includes some low paid jobs such as shelf filler.

www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/mar/08/international-womens-day-pay-gap

I have just asked DH why he thinks teenage boys don't do so well at exams - he replied "watching too much porn and wanking all day". I, however, thought it might be down to playing things like Call of Duty all day long.

Xenia - could that be because the boy who is seven years younger is likely to want a family later than the woman?

I agree with you and have posted elsewhere that age difference at marriage is a factor, though the average gap is dropping, at least in the US and probably UK too.

Yesk, they always had to skew the 11+ in favour of boys. Then it has just steadily crept up - the ages at which girls do better than boys and now many more girls to go university. Previously lots of them came from homes where boys were educated and girls got married but now some of that bias has gone girls do better. Women also earn more than men up to age 26. It stops and totally reverses - many more men end up earningm ore than their wives because women marry men who are older and/or earn more as they seem still to loko for good providers. Therefoer when they have to decide which of a couple will give up work the clever girl with the Oxford degree on £40k finds she has married the man on £150k who is 5 years ahead of her at work so she gives up work. She tends not to marry the boy 7 years yonger who has just graduated and earns £20k who might well bke the logical one to give up work.

Only when you reverse it - I earned 10x my children's father - do the calculations which are more about money than sexism issues - reverse too. As more and more women in their 20s earning a lot will find fewer men earning as much to marry they will find their husbands are on the same or a lower wage and be less likely to give up work

Could I just say that it may be true that course work favours girls, and there may be research to show that, but I am not wholly convinced. The reason I say is that I am probably older than many on these boards and took the (then) universal 11+ exam in the mid 1950s.

At that time the pass mark to "go to the Grammar" was set several percent higher for girls than for boys. The reason for that was that the schools were set to have a 50/50 sex ratio. But if they awarded place on marks they would have ended up with more girls than boys. Now, I know that to a degree you could coach for the 11+ but in essence it was a sudden death exam and there is no reason to think girls were coached more than boys. Yet they still passed the exam in greater numbers. Again, maybe 10/11 year old girls are more mature than boys of the same age and that may have been the reason for their success. But it certainly wasn't coursework. I don't have the source of the figures to hand any more but I recall looking it up a couple of years ago for a similar thread so the findings are still out there somewhere via Google. And of course it was openly admitted by educationalists and schools at the time.

I agree also with Xenia about the need for girls to have high expectations rather than expecting to look for a bread ticket. One thing my husband and I always drummed into them was "every jug should stand on its bottom". It worked.

I'm a teacher, so just wanted to talk about the education side. In school, coursework or exams, girls are outperforming boys. It extends across all subjects now too. Theories abound as to why - some of them have been mentioned on this thread already, I'd add the theory that questions these days are more evaluative, rather than information-based as they used to be. This supposedly appeals to the female rather than the male brain (should you believe such things...)

Personally, after having worked with hundreds of teenagers, I would support that girls are generally still more socialised to conform to rules and regulations. They are socialised to work hard and listen - to be "good". This works for them at GCSE but does mean that further up the educational ladder - undergraduate degree level and beyond, men's willingness to be risktakers (which I also would say is socialised btw) leaves women behind.

The board I was on ended up 50% female which is very very rare but even there I am not sure appointments were just on merit but nebulous other reasons.
I don't drink, have lots of sleep and prefer to come home to bed than socialise with people. I know that that of course has an impact and that does not matter as working for myself earns much more than many part time board posts pay so I do not see it as a problem. However there certainly is a need to be like others to be considered in the frame in some sectors (by no means all).

If you hate sport and don't drink those are other reasons that can have an impact.

As for what Sanjeev says I would hope most of us want the children to respect the teacher. I am terribly lucky where I live that our private (and state) schools are populated by children from cultures where respect for teachers remains high (and I suppose in class terms too perhaps there is more respect for teachers in private schools, traditional values etc).

The biggest issue is that women have pin money jobs and marry men who earn more. If women tended to marry men who earned half what they do because they wanted a fit man 8 years younger who works out a lot and looks good but is never expected to earn much you can bet your bottom dollar it would be the man not woman in those couples giving up work when babies came around.

Its your thread Sanjeev - rant away

I agree Sanjeev. But not all parents do