Is this another way women are inadvertently disadvantaging themselves at work?

[LooseMooseHoose]

I keep reading on various threads on MN that an OP's partner cannot possibly help out because they are more senior at work, are paid more and therefore their job is more important and the family must do anything (ie OP pick up all the slack) to avoid him potentially loosing his job. But is this just yet another way women are being conditioned to continue as primary carer and housekeeper?

Sheryl Sandberg's quote of "don't leave before you leave" really resonates with me, part of the idea being that as you move further up the career ladder, you have more flexibility. People will reschedule meetings for the most senior invitee, they will accept a senior person starting an hour later because of unforseen circumstances. Or indeed accept a short-term dip in performance and availability due to a global pandemic affecting childcare..!

But both the previous paragraphs cannot be true. I accept some men (and women!) will have jobs where this simply does not apply. But I can't help thinking that the average manager-bloke in the office, has much more flexibility than either they believe, or allow their wives to believe?

@RedskyBynight

We thought it was important to have a parent at home so me and my DH both went part-time when we had kids. Now in the pandemic he covers everything when I am working as his job is a lot more flexible.

We had friends who would loved to have done the same but their employees were inflexible and did not allow it. This is part of the problem I think and we need both cultural and legislative changes to really make family friendly working environments. That and addressing the disparity between male and female wages which also perpetuates this common situation.

I think a lot of women are more willing to take the career hit so it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy that their dh earns more and so their job gets priority.

Some men like the excuse but I think the world is changing and men are more willing to do more legwork.

yeh I read her first book seething! Did her husband die?

Unfortunately people are going to think of their own family as an economic unit and prioritise their husband's job if he earns a lot more. You have to be quite focused and wise and to be able to speak up for your own rights within the ''economic unit'' to make the demand that your right to work and earn and progress is valued equally at the point in your life when you are currently earning a lot less than your H.

It's not something I got right. My voice wasn't loud enough. I was cornered in to making decisions that made me feel a bit sick. But I recovered from them eventually to a degree anyway. I understand why it happens to women.

@PlanDeRaccordement

the idea being that as you move further up the career ladder, you have more flexibility.

This depends on what industry your career is in. In my career, it is the exact opposite. You have the most flexibility at entry level. The more senior you get, the more indispensable and critical you are to the success of the whole team. A team can trundle along and cover for one junior engineer that needs time off or flexible working, but not without their leader. Also the higher up you get the more decision meetings you have to attend such that your schedule controls you, and you try to do work like answering emails and strategic planning outside normal work hours so your days are longer. You are working nights and weekends. You also have to travel more. I had at one time 4 executive assistants handling my scheduling, screening my emails and letters, vetting visitors and meeting requests.

In some industries it’s true that the higher you are, the more flexibility but I’ve not seen it work out well. Marissa Meyer for example became first female CEO of Yahoo before she had her children. She even remodelled her office to have a nursery next to it so she could bring her baby to work and breastfeed. But, she also was completely incompetent at doing her job and ran Yahoo into bankruptcy by going on a shopping spree and buying out worthless companies. So even though she used her power as CEO to make her job flexible, it ended up being a terrible decision and caused the end of the entire company and the loss of thousands of jobs.

1. Yahoo was a shitshow before she came in
2. Are you truly blaming her bad job on breastfeeding?

I do get your point. It has taken my DH who is a senior manager, a long time to recognise his flexibility, although if the board call, he’s there, and in normal times, his company really do expect him to travel to suit them, and often at very short notice.

I am now, however, sure this is necessarily a gender thing. DH works in an industry where there are a lot of pretty senior women. The one know of with children at his level, tend to have husband or partners who pick up the pieces. His colleague’s teacher husband took a few years out and now supply teaches so he can be about for their children. Another works in lower paid job and Does day-to-day child care. I see the same where we live. Even successful women who give up or go part-time tend to be earning a fair bit less than their DHs. Meanwhile, where the wives earn much more, dad’s tend to be more flexible.

I think this is far more an issue of unequal salaries prior to having children, or at least, of women getting left behind while they have children etc.

We are a team and yes, decided my career would take the childcare hit.

When we had children dh's career was on the up, great promotion path etc - so no, there was no or very little flexibility. Now the kids are late teens, he is as flexible as it gets and can take time out at will. Sometimes the right flexibility doesn't come at the right stage of life.

It's very rare that it happens that women's careers are in ascendancy or their work inflexible or they earn more, thus meaning it is 'logical' for men to take the childcare hit. Funny that.

DH and I met at work at same level doing same job and have basically moved up ranks together but now in different companies (me in small consultancy, him in large company). I work 60% FT by choice, he works 90% but If both FT salaries would be similar. But I have way more flexibility than him in my working hours as his work is full of meetings, often large groups whereas I have fewer formal meetings. WFH this year has made that even clearer - he is often in meetings/calls back to back for most of the day, I maybe average 2-3 hours of calls a day. Luckily DC now teenagers but when they were younger I did the bulk of it (he dropped off at childcare one morning and picked up one afternoon, I did rest). But he did move things if possible to attend assemblies, parents evening, pick up if I had important meeting - possible with small meetings particularly when he was most senior person attending but not when he had to attend board meetings. So answer is that it depends on the job.

My situation is a little bit different as I’m single but DD’s dad prioritises his job over mine and over Dd and often tells me his job is much more important than mine so doesn’t help me at all during the week. Even though I’m the only one earning money in my household and looking after Dd 90% of the time. He works from home and organises his own diary so could easily help out. He’s been able to progress in his career because he has no responsibilities whereas I can’t do that.

I think there is a "sweet spot" in many careers. Both DH and I are in the position now that we are senior enough to have some control over our workload/diaries but not so senior that we are expected to drop everything at a minute's notice, at any time of day or night, if there is a crisis. We are both loathe to chase promotions due to realising it will bring less flexibility!

The man? He just fucks off to his home office.

^

Agree with this. DH can't be disturbed, but apparently I can?