[2] Let's talk about: women's issues in the work place

I had four times being left off the list for a fresh contract after missing a round due to pregnancy.

The stupidity of it was that they kept telling me I was terrific and trying to get me to work at a higher level, and bewailing the shortage of team leaders (the level I worked at at that time).

When I finally moved to self employed and stopped accepting offers at all, they literally did not notice. This was after a twenty year contract work relationship. The fools.

The "but men work 13 hour shifts too" argument is covered by the concept of indirect sex discrimination (as pointed out up thread).

To count as sex discrimination, a working practise or salary scale doesn't have to affect all women. It doesn't have to affect only women. It simply has to disproportionately affect women compared to men.

The example we were given when I covered this on an equality course at work was a job advert which said "You will already be in a role earning 35K pa." The intention of the job ad would be to screen out junior role holders trying it on and select only established professionals in the field - so not directly aimed at excluding women. But it would count as indirect sex discrimination because women on average would be less likely to earn 35K than men.

I worked in admin in my 40’s. The software we were required to learn (in-house software and standard applications) were legion. It was expected we’d learn this with no formal training. Men with jobs requiring similar levels of expertise (but in more traditionally male roles) were always paid more, given a hell of a lot more autonomy over their day to day work, and not subject to the same role to role bullying that women engage in.

One of my admin jobs I was the only staff member (all women) out of 9 who was a single parent and only one of 3 members of staff who had kids (the first boss had kids who were now adults in their 30’s). On the very rare occasion one of my 2 would call from school saying they were ill and needed to go home (aged under 13) the supervisor would refuse to let me leave. This was a major problem for me as I felt pulled in two: the kids need me to work to earn for food, shelter, etc/the kids are ill and need to be at home with their mum. I just think it’s inhuman and needs to be sorted.

Excitingly, you don't even need to be a mother to benefit from sex discrimination - simply being a woman of childbearing age will do (please apply sarcastic tone). I've been in interview situations before where a male interviewer has tried to not-very-subtly find out if I have children, or if I'm married and therefore likely to have them soon. I particularly remember being asked "So, what three words would your husband use to describe you?" I didn't have a husband and had given no information about my marital status on my CV, so clearly I was supposed to either correct him or else have him assume that I was married because I hadn't corrected him.

Since I'm not actually married and don't have kids, nor do I want them, I've been tempted to say that when I've really wanted the job, but it wouldn't sit right with me morally. And anyway, as soon as people do find out, they assume you'll be ok to cover all the Christmas and summer shifts that the parents book off months in advance...

Back in 2016, the Equality and Human Rights Commission did a major piece of research into discrimination against pregnant women and new mothers at work. It was a very thorough study with a representative sample of over 3,000 women in the UK. They found that 11% of pregnant women and new mothers lost their jobs because of discrimination, adding to 54,000 women each year. They found that 4% of women leave their jobs because of health and safety concerns, which is around 20,000 women each year. Three-quarters of pregnant women and new mothers experience some form of discrimination but only around 3% raise a formal grievance and fewer than 1% raise a tribunal claim.

These research findings show that things are pretty bad for pregnant women and new mothers at work whether or not they are on high or low incomes or in high or low skilled jobs.

You would think this would have prompted some action by Government, since they commissioned the research, but it hasn't. They put out a consultation earlier this year on minor improvements to redundancy protections, which is two years late and doesn't offer much to anyone. Maternity Action has been quite active on this and their report on redundancy is worth a read.

It does my head in that the Government's own research shows just how bad the situation is but they keep avoiding the problem. There is a comprehensive set of recommendations for action in the Women and Equalities Select Committee and Equalities Select Committee inquiry on this issue which would really improve things for women.

It's a two parter isn't it?

First there are the barriers to work that come from care work that is generally necessary and provided free by women and which allows society to continue. Children need to be looked after. Homes do. Other relatives. And by default women take on these responsibilities. And yes, this includes providing the wife-work that allows partners to progress career wise.

And then there are the explicit workplace practices which are discriminatory. The judging more harshly of women's grooming, social skills, output. The lack of recognition of needs. The underpayment that seems endemic in jobs that are mostly full of women. The refusal to promote because a woman is a mother or might become one.

I facilitated my husband's career. Made it possible for him to travel for work at the drop of a hat. Did not expand my business when I should have because it meant relying on him being home by 6pm one night a week.

So many women I know rely on grandparents to provide care. My mil made it very clear to me that while they were considering moving to live near us when my children were young she had zero intention of providing regular care on set days. Of course, she now provides that for her daughter's children (not having moved). My mother was unreliable because of her own work when my children were very young. It's not sustainable to push the childcare issue up a generation. Not only because grandmothers don't always enjoy/want to be caring for the children but also because they often need/want to stay in employment themselves. But children will continue to need to be looked after by adults. And wrap-around-care doesn't solve that even where it exists.

The clause in every contract I’ve ever had that says which says ‘occasional foreign travel’ (to head office for training/socialising/indoctrination/whatever) which I can’t do. So 51 weeks of the year, I’m the perfect, overachieving, office-near-home-very-regular-hours-based employee, one week of the year I’m the stupid, awkward pain in the arse that won't go to HQ mostly for a jolly. (And I know it’s a jolly because a) Facebook and b) once they’ve finished making me feel lucky I have a job at all they agree I can not go.)

@JanesKettle

I still wish I had spent all my income plus more on childcare at that stage; in retrospect, it would have set me up to be the working parent, and dh to be the 'stay home with the unwell child' parent, and given me a lot more financial independence in the long run.

I did actually do this in the pre school years but it still didn't work out. I ended up moving from full time to part time to very part time then had to admit defeat in the end.

My DH is almost a decade older than me and has an established, well paid career, I had no chance of matching that so me being the sahp was the only realistic option.

13 hour shifts are also incredibly discriminatory against anyone with a disability or health problem. I find so many jobs expect you to be some sort of super human robot. And if you end up suffering from exhaustion, they are disdainful of you and find a replacement.

When kids were younger, the cost of going back to work full time was prohibitive in terms of child care. It would have cost us for me to work. And I did not have parents or in-laws to help, as both sets were still in f/t work themselves

Yes, I am in this position except parents ill rather than in f/t work (they really need help from me rather than being able to provide it) and no other family help. It is hard to decide to work when it's going to actually cost you money and make your life - and the life of your children and parents and spouse - more stressful and difficult.

Caution - not my nigel ahead!

My Dad has provided full time childcare to one relative's child to cover a gap between maternity leave and child care place opening up. He's also provided p/t childcare to a child in the family much younger than mine.

BUT he is a rarity, and I agree that childcare being passed off to grandmothers is a major issue.

I think as the Boomers and Xers pass on, and Gen Z's have their own kids, a lot of them are going to find that Grandma is still having to work f/t till she is 70+ because she is financially insecure, and that will massively complicate childcare options for coming generations.

What I've seen happen is where workplace conditions are family unfriendly it is disproportionately the mothers who take a step away and into a job (often completely unrelated to what they trained for) which fits around their kids - sacrificing a range of things like career prospects and work benefits (e.g. pension). Certainly happens where DH works - up to a certain level there are a reasonable number of women, and then you hit a certain point (roughly when people start to have kids) and the women seem to just fade away so at more senior levels there are barely any women.

You could argue that all these women are making a choice, and they are, individually, for what they think is the benefit of their families but you then have to ask why it is so disproportionately mothers rather than fathers that make this choice? In my opinion it's the way the workplace and society is set up, structural inequality, societal expectations (on men and women).....

Why do parents have to make an unpalatable choice, why can't the workplace change?

OvaHere

Same, but instead of SN, MH issues, including school refusal, resulting in distance/home ed and need for a parent to supervise.
Disrupted my return to work at a time I would not have expected it.

When kids were younger, the cost of going back to work full time was prohibitive in terms of child care. It would have cost us for me to work. And I did not have parents or in-laws to help, as both sets were still in f/t work themselves.

I still wish I had spent all my income plus more on childcare at that stage; in retrospect, it would have set me up to be the working parent, and dh to be the 'stay home with the unwell child' parent, and given me a lot more financial independence in the long run.

13 hour shifts (in whatever job) are very unfriendly to anyone with caring responsibilities for any other family member, and of course we know that caring responsibilities disproportionately fall on women. So many people have small children at some point in their lives and unless they have a SAH partner/ grandparents / other family willing to help I don't see how you can easily manage childcare (particularly in a way that isn't hugely disrupting to the children) when shifts are that long. Unless you're paid enough to pay for a nanny (not the case for nurses).

Seems to me the workplace plays lip service to being family friendly often, rather than actually being family friendly.

MirzyMoo, I didn't describe 13 hour shifts as sexual discrimination but I do think being required to work those hours is indirect discrimination against parents. As it is usually mothers who are the primary carers for their children, or sole carers in the case of single mothers it is a women's workplace issue.

13 hour shifts are worked by Male Nurses as well! Its not sexual discrimination is it?

The context was 'Jobs that require the employee to work long shifts outside of childcare provider hours. ' - so, they effectively discriminate against the primary carers of children, so in a sexist society it's indirect sexism. Or as with so many of these issues, more specifically 'motherism'.

@Thingybob 13 hour shifts are worked by Male Nurses as well! Its not sexual discrimination is it?

Really interesting thread.

I'd also be interested to see statistics on when a heterosexual couple move for a job how many times the 'trailing spouse' is female.

Also passing on of child care problems to older women (grand mothers) as a SAHM I know a lot of grandmothers in this situation and quite a lot of them really don't seem that happy about it, and rather forced into it by circumstances. In my experience it's always women too - have never yet met a grandfather doing this. And of course, the general trend is to have children later so grandparents will be older possibly with more health issues themselves, so it really doesn't seem a very robust long-term solution to childcare issues.

I've ended up with a very long career gap because firstly, only I was entitled to maternity leave when our first was born (I do think people forget that shared parental leave is a relatively new thing and not all of us had that choice), which led to me being the 'trailing spouse' by default somewhat as DH offered a big opportunity during my mat leave, and then that decision lead to me again being the one to stay at home with child 2.

As a family, each decision is not taken in isolation. In my experience, once you've left the workforce it is much easier to then continue to take on the caring role when additional children come along (or there are other family caring needs) and quite difficult to break the cycle of everyone relying on you for all the mental and practical load.

I’ve been play in the workplace myself, but as a union rep I tend to see really subtle discrimination that is really hard to do anything about. My employer is 2:1 male:female so the dominant culture is male, geeky rather than macho, but definitely some pockets of macho.

I see women clearly being judged by male standards, being expected to fit a certain confident mould that women are less likely to fit than men. I’ve also seen non-NT women being expected to fit an NT standard that’s less likely to be applied to men.

Two things going on there, I think. One is that non-NT men are often a bit more obvious, and we’re very proud of our neurodiversity, so they can get a bit of a free pass, whereas women’s behaviour is a bit subtler, so they’re less likely to get the pass. Added to that, women get judged more harshly than men for being blunt, not picking up social cues etc, because society expects women to just be ... nicer.

So we end up with situations where the individual sees discrimination, I’m inclined to agree, but proving it is really, really hard.

I also still hear the good old-fashioned statements like ‘no point in looking for promotion, you’ll probably be having another baby’ relayed to me. It’s incredibly frustrating, we have solid corporate commitment to diversity, and then people open their mouths and let that crap fall out.

There’s also a hard core of men who refuse to believe women have any kind of issues in the workplace, openly question any diversity initiatives aimed at women (they’re a bit more guarded about about other characteristics, having at least figured out that racism isn’t a good look), and generally derail.

I've worked in technology for many years and signed an NDA as part of my departure from a recent job. In previous jobs with smaller companies and smaller teams it has generally been fine: a ratio of say, 5:1 male to female, working directly with a manager who has recruited you and who wants to support you, and lots of interesting things to do.
But more recently I've been getting approached by the big names (Amazon, Facebook, etc) who are all apparently out to recruit more women, and I read about the work environment in these places and they look incredibly off putting: long hours, competitive environments, very male dominated. And just attempting to recruit more women isn't in itself going to make any of that any better.

I echo the above poster. Despite having worked in a predominantly male environment the discrimination from which my NDA arose was from a woman. Not my case but she gave a talk at a he for she event where she said that she worked every hour she could to get promoted and her now teenage children told her they couldn't really remember seeing her growing up. She was very proud of this and expected it from women working for her.

Very true Fermats. My DS has ASD so he's vulnerable whilst still being very much a teenager. He is as much work as a toddler still, in different ways of course but it still amounts to me being currently out of the workplace.

Things are getting better slowly (I think) and I hope to return to work soonish but I never imagined my forties would be like this.