Is it OK to have a career rant here?

Women working based at home can have a huge capacity to do international business.

I think this is part of the problem - many of us still don't think of stay at home parents by default, but stay at home mums. We need to see flexible working as something which benefits everyone, not just parents - after all, we all have lives outside work. Obviously not all types of job can have the same flexibility as others - you can't decide not to teach year 9 French a bit later just because you had to take the car in for its MOT, for example. But for many jobs, technology means it is possible to work from home and do some of the work at times which don't fit into 9-5. Meeting face to face is good - but there's also email, instant messaging, document sharing, screen sharing when necessary, telephones, video conferencing... It doesn't have to be desk-based 9-5. But unfortunately, until more men start working more flexibly, it's going to be seen as that thing mums do while they're not really on a proper career path.

I also think we need mandatory equal pay audits, and more objective ways of measuring performance. I know that's not always easy - some things can't just be broken down easily into measurable numbers. But there are things which can be looked at - why are female academics having to publish more papers than male academics to be seen as equivalent? (I have some issues with the way academia sometimes seems to be all about numbers of published papers, rather than looking at the quality, or whatever work is being done. But while it is - well, that is something which is measurable.)

This is all something I feel quite strongly about at the moment - they've issued tables of technical competencies, and what you should be able to achieve at particular levels. It's far from perfect, but I think it is a good starting place, and if they ranked everyone against it, I think they would see that not everyone is equal, and some people are better than management think, while others don't deserve the reputation they have, when you break it down. Some people probably are in about the right place, but a lot aren't, and a lot of it is dependent on the manager's opinion, and it's currently too subjective - I suspect many places are like this.

I think also, there needs to be much more awareness of issues like unconscious bias, because while it's difficult to counter unconscious things, the starting place has to be awareness that it does play a part.

"Greengrow: I found your statement that no one ever dies wishing they earnt less money quite perverse. Many people die wishing they had spent more time with their family and less time working."

I just get sick of people going on about people dying wishing they had spent more time with their family. Plenty don't. It is used as comment to hit those who enjoy working hard over the head so I like to turn it on its head - a good death, something sadly my last few years have been concerned with as both my parents have died - their deaths were good in part because of earnings because they could afford full time care at home, could die in the home they owned in control and with the money to ensure that was so. Don't knock the ability as a woman or man to generate money to ensure your retirement years are not spent in miserable poverty. Spending decades with your family as an unpaid servant is not the wonderful nirvana so many people suggest it is.

On the other topic I know it's hard for many women to progress at work. Self promotion is difficult. I listen to a lot of women in work contexts and too many say - I think or perhaps or I am not very good at this, I might be wrong. Try to strip those comments out of work place conversations. Be authoritative in saying what the answer is. Try not to touch your hair too. I am certainly not an expert at all this but I've always known since I was a teenager that I was pretty good at most things, not lease because I got th best A levels int he school and top prizes at university so it's probably objectively provable that I am (no false modesty here.......) It's always fun to out earn and beat men.The exercise of erotic capital can be fun too.

I think whether yhou are male or female and stay at home or not though the time when you have children udner 5 is probably the hardest of your life, of any stage of it iat all. I have been looking at the VHS video tapes we made of those years which I hadp ut on to a hard drive recently. There's a tap where I am changing the cloth nappy of the 3rd child on the floor (in those days we either could not afford disposables or they did not work well - he has now graduated) with the 1 and 3 year old around - the constant tasks of seeing to one child and then the next. Once you have teenagers as I have now it's a walk in the park. Worth keeping up the full time career in those difficult years because once children are older things like the fact my children can graduate debt free, buy properties in their 20s and my daughters have the same legal career to talk to me about are priceless - much more priceless than the fact I changed 4 nappies a day not 25 when they were under 5 and cannot remember.

People I know: a late 50s woman, very successfull woman in academia. Two children. She had a lazy, unfaithful SAH husband and she worked her socks off to get where she is now. She'd leave for work most days at 5.00am, did a MA, worked her way up and through the Uni. She still works 12 hours every day.

Mid 30s male, works in banking, travels worldwide extensively, earns lots of money. He is doing the job he always wanted. His DW has a job in advertising, but since having 2 DCs doesn't get the interesting work, probably because she often is often off work to look after sicks DCs and has to pick them up from nursery at 6pm.

Greengrow: I found your statement that no one ever dies wishing they earnt less money quite perverse. Many people die wishing they had spent more time with their family and less time working.

I loved being at home with my DCs and I am so glad that I had that time with them.

Maybe the answer for career women is find themselves a SAHD.

As a mother I think the limitations imposed on my career are external to the office.

I do feel guilty: next week I will travel to four countries over three continents. Time zones mean I can't talk to the DC everyday and I find that hard.

As my career has progressed I've also had to shift more responsibility for the DC on to my DH and of course to do that I have to have a DH who is happy to take up the slack - which fortunately he is.

If anything I think my ability to "juggle" a word I hear used about me rather than one I use myself is seen as a strength.

"Meritocracy" - now there is a concept to which far too many self-satisfied organisations pay only disingenuous lip service! It usually reminds me of that saying, "Objectivity is male subjectivity".

I am one of a handful of women amongst an 800 strong engineering workforce. There are literally no women in senior engineering roles where I work, they have all moved to business or programme management or similar. I love my job and I cannot see myself ever moving into a less technical role but I am starting to feel so much less confident at work now that male colleagues are soaring ahead. I returned from my latest maternity leave to find someone I had trained now working as my team leader. I don't begrudge him that, he is very capable, confident, works hard etc etc and was good in the role (has since moved on again...) I started to question why I wasn't in the same league, and I still don't really know the answer. I consciously didn't apply for what I considered to be a desirable role while I was pregnant as it seemed pointless. And I wonder if I'm just not as good as I thought I was when I was younger, maybe that's true? With virtually no female colleagues to compare experiences with I find it really hard to tell whether I just need to adjust my expectations (there are plenty of men working at my level and happy to continue to do so forever, it would seem) or if this is unfair treatment. My appraisals still seem to be good but I think my lack of confidence is now holding me back. A lot of what Greengrow said has struck a chord for me. I need to start with the self promotion. It certainly doesn't come naturally to me.

I'm inclined to agree with greengrow regarding woman not doing themselves favours by failing to appropriately self promote.

I have lost count of the number if times I've cringed through women saying "I think" "we might" "maybe we should try". Men do not speak like this. They don't apologise for their POV and if they're wrong they get on with it.

I found the book nice girls don't get the corner office a really interesting read and useful for examining those ways we all sabotage our careers without even real using it - there is a very interesting part about not taking on roles that aren't within your remit because you "feel you should"

I could show you the bruises on my head from the glass ceiling. I am 40 and work in an industry that claims to be pure meritocracy. I call bullshit on that. Three years ago I decided to grit my teeth and pluck myself out of the hole I'd stalled into and made massive strides in the following two years...only to have my team taken away from me because someone else (a man) needed a vehicle for his next promotion. This man ran the team into the ground, while I was stuck with a new team of chronic under performers and demanding clients.

I was so stressed that I quit.

I'm planning my return and intend to get as much support as I can in terms of (paid) coaching, therapy, whatever it takes...but it's so freaking unfair.

And in the meantime, all senior management go to offsites to "tackle the diversity problem" which invariably ends up in coming up with more training for women. Because you know, the problem is us, not them.

I simply meant some women do better at work because of how they look (and I agree that applies to attractive and to tall men too) but totally separately that how much many women have in the family is often related to whether they "married up", the status and income of their husband and if they are pretty etc they tend to find it easier to marry a higher status and richer man and however consciously or subconsciously women do tend to prefer the successful man in a suit than the blue collar worker who works down the local refuse yard. It's a fascinating issue. Men have traditionally married for looks - boss with secretary. However more recently couples tend to be assortively mated often with someone from university so you get two clever richer people marrying these days which did not historically amount to the norm. That means they have clever richer children - less social mixing than when men married thick pretty wives. However very successful women might find life easier if they married the pool boy who is happy to stick around at home and clean the loos and mop up sick when the child is sick yet women tend to want to marry their equal or someone who exceeds them. Anyway it's rather by the way.

Mind you plenty of women on divorce who don't earn much say their husband's career is all down to them so one might argue the converse applies and that a woman could aid her career best as many of us know by marrying a non sexist feminist man who does as much as we do at home.

Most of my work is behind a screen so it really does not matter if I have 4 legs or weight 40 stone. I certainly agree that excellence at work and ability to generate clients/customers/profits tends to win out with most employers and in your own business a lot more than any kind of erotic enticement.

Yes that would be nice although it is not always so. I am certainly not the Hakim exponent that women have it easier than men because they have erotic capital too but it lurks there. It is something that can be relevant in some contexts and indeed is how the many women who earn less than their richer husband and snared him into bed and marriage because he fancied her do all the time. It does exist - that if you are pretty and sexy you tend to get a better husband if not a better job and are richer in consequence just like although genetically blue eyes ought to die out as brown eyes win out, more women and men choose a blue eyed partner and have more children so blue is on the rise which is fascinating.

Anyway back to international work - I do a lot. I try not to travel and always have tried not to as the novelty soon wears off and that is not relevant to having children really at all. It is just that pointless hours on planes and at air ports is not very healthy or fun after a while. I don't regret a few business jaunts above and if the children want to work a year or two abroad that's a good plan to widen your experience but I know for most people being happy comes from getting enough sleep (impossible if you have babies whether you work or not of course), eating good food and avoiding drink and drugs keeps you happy.

Women working based at home can have a huge capacity to do international business. I am replying most days to international emails from other time zones before 7am because I don't have to leave, catch a train and then get to work. I am more not less available. However it also means at the moment I can drive the children to school which is fine. Then as I work from the house I can deal with emails at the other end of the day quite easily too. Actually everything is dead easy now they are teenagers. It's 9.15am on a Saturday. I can sit here doing some invoicing and none of the three sons in the house has even got up yet. Compare that to when they were little with a baby usually up by 6am (and that was a late lucky day after they'd already been up once or twice in the night) and you can see how having older children is so very much easier. (Mind you two went out to two cinema showings back to back which ended at 1am lat night - some kind of Halloween thing not that they woke me up)

I think the conversation a page or so ago about the increasingly global nature of jobs is interesting. The job I've been being nudged towards and have just decided not to go for is essentially a global version of what I currently do in a UK context. It would mean lots of travel and lots of out of hours phone calls. I really enjoy my job, but I also enjoy doing other things (including spending time with my children), and for me I think getting that balance right is more important than climbing the greasy pole for the sake of it.

I think it's possible to get a balance, but sometimes you need more imagination than some places show. It's okay to agree to take some calls out of (UK) hours, if it's not taking up every early morning (AsiaPac) or evening (US), and if you get time off in the day, but I'd want to restrict it to a couple of particular days. It can be useful not having to work during normal work hours, though.

I used to work for a US company here in the UK, and some people just worked US shifts, i.e. 2pm-10pm our time. Wouldn't be keen on doing that every day myself (you basically don't get any evenings), but for some people, it worked well with their childcare arrangements.

As for erotic capital, it's just another thing to beat women down with, IMO. You can't get on because you're a woman, unless you flirt your way to the top. If you're not seen as sexually attractive, then you're really stuffed. Having said all that, it's not like it's irrelevant to men - there have been studies which show that if you're good looking and taller, you tend to progress better in your career.

It'd be nice for work to be about competence, not fuckability.

1. One issue is do small children need one parent not to work or be part time. Certainly not in my experience if both parents can hack it working full time. Miriam G and her husband who is deputy PM are one of countless examples. London is full of power couples - they like and attract each other. I am not saying everyone can be in that league but it not so that you cannot both work full time. Indeed the more money and power you have the easier that is.

1. I dispute that if you work full time as a woman you have not nurtured and aren't close to your children. Most parents who work full time make a lot of effort to be home for bed time and be around for their children.

1. Women who don't like the long hours of some companies why not just leave and work in a way that suits you? Talented women often do do that and it works. I work in effect a 7 day week based at home (with 2 weeks away on holiday with the family a year). That is perfect for me. It means within all those days which usually start with checking the over night emails from clients abroad before 7am to the checking of work just before I go to bed at 10pm I can fit everything family life and the rest into those 7 days by getting beyond the mind set that you have to have two set days called a weekend when there is no work. Just think outside the box. No one dies wishing they had earned a lot less. They have a good death because they can afford the at home carers and live longer because they earn more. The myth people are peddled that hard work brings unhappiness is exactly that - a myth. The huge pleasure many high earning women and men get from work and of course children too is there for all to see. Of course not everyone is of that mind set.

1. I have people I pay to do bits of work things for me and we worked around their commitments but they all work hard. My cleaner works our job around others and will often be here at 7.15am. A lady with a baby I use who moved to Sweden fits my work around her other job but she works hard, is never ever late and is happy to work at 10pm. What those women and the men I work with and I have in common is capacity for utter liability, never ill and never late with the work. Most people aren't like that. Woodie Allen said the reason he'd done well was he "showed up" - he was on time, he was reliable. The average IQ is 100 and plenty of people who are brighter don't want to work hard and don't turn up on time and are unreliable so if you aren't like that you can stand out.

1. Anyone who wants to know about erotic capital can buy the book by Hakim www.amazon.co.uk/Erotic-Capital-Attraction-Boardroom-Bedroom/dp/0465027474/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414772113&sr=8-1&keywords=erotic+capital+hakim

I agree with Greengrow.

Women - we need to big ourselves up more to everyone.

Scallops, I actually don't think in the long run men really benefit from the system either. What I've seen with men in their 60s and 70s is that they've totally invested in whole "man working, woman at home" thing and they benefited hugely from it from the age of 20-50, but beyond 50 when they were older, approaching retirement and in especially in their retirement years, they have found that once work is gone they literally have nothing. The women, who struggled from age 20-50 are now reaping the rewards of a close and loving relationship with children they have nurtured. The men on the other hand are disconnected from their children and their wife, they don't feel like they're genuinely a part of the family they've now been thrust back into (after years of being "away" in the workforce) and they're lonely, at a loose end, grumpy, lacking motivation etc. Women gain in the very long run IMO, but it's no compensation for what they lose in younger years, and in the end it's not much fun living with a grumpy husband that you and your children hardly know.

I think the conversation a page or so ago about the increasingly global nature of jobs is interesting. The job I've been being nudged towards and have just decided not to go for is essentially a global version of what I currently do in a UK context. It would mean lots of travel and lots of out of hours phone calls. I really enjoy my job, but I also enjoy doing other things (including spending time with my children), and for me I think getting that balance right is more important than climbing the greasy pole for the sake of it.

Personally I think organisations would get the best out of their employees if they recognised that many people feel the same way I do. I'm good at what I do, and when I'm at work I'm 100% focused on doing the best I can for the company. That doesn't mean I want to sacrifice everything else in my life to that cause though, and by increasingly requiring me to do so they may be about to lose someone who is generally considered an asset to the business.

I think organisations benefit from having different types of people in them. Of course the people who are willing and able to work 60+ hour weeks are hugely valuable. But so, imo, are the people with the experience and self-awareness to know what drives them, and the perspective having a rounded life brings.

YY BranchingOut. I could see what you meant btw. Totally agree with the collective rethink. The workplace is very much an example of 'designed by men, for men' and women are currently just trying to fit in around the edges. If you think about it, it is pretty insulting that half the population (in fact more than that because children as well) are just expected to align themselves within a system that has never been designed to cater for them.

I agree Branching. The whole system of how work is organised is wrong, IMO. There is very much the sense that once someone employs you, you owe them your time and you should be grateful for the pressure they heap upon you. It is totally the wrong attitude I think. Workers are immeasurably valuable and yet employers tend to treat them like workhorses that need to have every last drop of effort eked out of them. As a matter of principle I think it's the wrong way for society to view human beings, whether they be men or women.

I definitely did not say that, greengrow, but was rather trying to give a sample of real-life trajectories - these include female high-flyers, many of whom were privately educated, who chose law :), but who are now below the radar...

If the solution is for a father to choose the SAHP role, then surely that just transfers the disadvantage?

In my view, it needs a collective re-thinking on the part of society, educators and employers to say that yes, family life is important and that the career costs of that should not just fall heavily on one gender.

All the men on my uni course who got the same or worse degree than me all are more senior and earn more than me. It sucks

I don't know what to think about this sort of thing cause I went down the freelance consultancy road after middle management and so never became a senior manager and therefore am now very unlikely to manage an organisation in my sector, even a small one, and I am really happy and doing well albeit a bit "behind the scenes".

I know one woman who heads an org and she isn't happy with her job. It's high profile and very accountable. In my sector the role is crushed between "staff" below and "trustees" above and although looks glam it can be very very tough.

Because I don't want to do it, I feel a bit hypocritical wishing more women were.