What do you think are the things that hold women back at work?what could be done to improve things ?

[JennyTals]

This is actually a homework question, but I thought we could come with some good ideas, personally I think it's all fairly equal up until the point of getting pregnant and having children
Well that was my experience

Things I think hold fairness/equality back are

The huge expectations on women to not only work, but to do the lions share of the work at home with cleaning cooking shopping childcare And School stuff

Lack of childcare in workplaces like nursery's

Cost of childcare

Employers don't really like it when women take time off for mat leave and sick children etc thye might not say anything but they often don't like it
Men tend to take less sick days for poorly kids

If the children have issues the mothers tend to get blamed more

@OhBling I don't disagree with a lot of what you've said. My point is more that pre-kids, a lot can be resolved by an individual woman choosing to "Lean In". Don't take on grunt work, don't serve on non-billable committees, actively request to be put on the high-profile work, etc.

I actually agree with your point to the other poster that in other words, the professional world is designed for a man's way of working, likely a man with a wife - my biggest gripe with the professional world is that it times the "make it or break it" period of the career, i.e. making MD/partner, with peak reproductive years!

I suppose a restatement of my point is: almost all of the gender gap disappears pre-kids because it's entirely possible for a woman in her 20s on reliable contraception to act like a man and fit into the structures. It's not, or much less, possible after kids - a hard vs a soft limitation.

I also worked in a very male dominated industry as a senior manager. The only female senior manager! However, I felt like I hit a ceiling under the boys club in the o suite.

I really couldn’t be bothered with the politics and empire building at that level in the end. I think most women want to go to work, do an excellent job and be recognised for that through salary and promotion. I don’t think many women self promote the way senior men do.

Law firms have done research on this (in their own businesses - and probably other professional services firms too) and, to their credit, are trying to fix it. For example - work allocation. Men often get the juicier, more high profile work, x1000 if the allocating partner is a man. He picks other men like him. The female lawyers might be working same hours but on smaller less high profile , less profitable, cases

Yes, women do the "non-promotable" work. There's a book about it called the No Club. As you said, the women do the less high profile work, the men get the juicier projects. Same goes with race - white men get better projects than black men.

Also, if women refuse to do the non-promotable work like diversity initiatives or arranging training, there is pushback, whereas there won't be if a man says he's too busy.

Book here in case of interest: The No Club

Have had a quick read through the replies , so not sure if already covered .
I think lack of confidence in their abilities also holds women back . I read somewhere that a man will apply for posts where he only meets 60 per cent of the essential criteria and a woman would only do so when she met 100 per cent .

Yes that is also true. A man will apply for promotion and a woman thinks "oh I am not really up to it" and doesn't. Also, they are probably more likely to think that a promotion might affect family life whereas a man will just think of the money. I know I am stereotyping.

I think that the problem for me is this: almost all of the gender gap disappears pre-kids because it's entirely possible for a woman in her 20s on reliable contraception to act like a man and fit into the structures.

The problem is that lots of women can't, won't, don't want to act like a man and fit into these structures. And even for women who ARe willing, it takes a lot more work for women to do that becase there are still biases in how she is perceived.

In a non-work related example, when we were in our early 20s, a good friend had a man basically grope her on a bus and basically proposition her. She froze, then landed up getting off the bus at th ewrong stop. I was so cross with her - why didn't you shout at him, move his hand, move away from the seat I asked her. But as I've got older I realise how unfair that is. I am confident. Working in investment banks in my 20s, I leaned in and got those promotions. On a busy bus, I would feel comforable calling a man out. But she doesn't. Because the way I am is not the way most women are and actually, that's okay. We don't have to be like men. Rather, I should have reserved all my anger for this man who assaulted my friend on a bus.

I suppose a restatement of my point is: almost all of the gender gap disappears pre-kids because it's entirely possible for a woman in her 20s on reliable contraception to act like a man and fit into the structures. It's not, or much less, possible after kids - a hard vs a soft limitation

though when you are in your 20s you are too young to be taken seriously.

The problem for women is that they are always the wrong age.

Under 30 - too young
30-45 - will have kids
Over 45 menopausal
Over 60 should be looking after the grandchildren

For men it's anyone under about 45-50 is fine, and then depending on the employer you are considered washed up in varying degrees from that.

Although I think anyone under 25 struggles to find a job at the moment as employers insist on ten years' experience for a minimum wage job, but that's a different issue!

Biology

I would put it the other way round - why don't men put their family first?

My kids are both young adults, applying for stuff. DS and DD. It's far easier for DD as there are programmes specifically aimed at women.

I don't think women are held back by the workplace itself.

What holds women back in work is the fact that they have babies. Those babies grow inside them for 9mths and this often causes missed work for appointments/related health conditions. Then they need mat leave. Then they may do flexible or part time working or not work. The child may get ill. Men often continue their work throughout this process totally unhindered.

And it's worth emphasizing that for a good chunk of women, possibly even the majority, that having a baby is a major/primary life objective that is prioritized over career progression.

This shit about women "having it all" is total and utter crap. If you work in a "big job" when you are 30 and you put your heart, soul and lots of time into it - you cannot hope at 31 to have a baby and maintain the same work rate at work. Because there aren't enough hours in the day. You have to reallocate the hours that already exist.

Well they do put the family first if they are out working to provide for it.

Yes. I think there's a lot of messaging about how parenting should be totally equal with equal numbers of nappy changes during the night and equal financial contributions.

I do think some aspects of the financial system make it challenging to have a balanced but not "100% the same" relationship. There's no such thing as a joint pension or really any market-competitive joint savings accounts. This is probably a downstream consequence of not having joint taxation.

I think a lot of the issues with men having big pensions that their wives can't access etc, we're trying to solve it by having women build up equal sized individual pensions, but perhaps should be looking at giving women better access to joint family finances and letting couples decide their relative contributions.

In many respects yes but we don't all have babies but we are always presumed to be wanting babies and that affects interview and promotion potential.

I have even had interviewers say they can't have a young woman on the team because the men would find me distracting and even that they could hear my biological clock ticking, wholly unethical and something that should never be mentioned in a work place. One said my prospective line manager has only just got married and he thought I would cause problems in his marriage. I looked at the interviewer and asked him why he felt his manager had no restraint on his sexual desires despite being newly wed. He blushed deeply and I asked why, if he felt this way about my prospective manager, did he ask me for interview and he told me he thought I'd be a lot uglier😆😆😆I've had some real hum dingers of interviews.

But while I work well with men and women I always fare better with men bosses, once I get past these dreadful interviews. Several women managers have told me outright that they feel threatened even though I do my best to reassure them I'm a contractor and have no desire to work as a manager, I've done it several times and didn't like it. I've only ever had one supportive woman boss but I have had many supportive men bosses once I'd proved I could do the job. I don't know what I could do different, I am supportive of all my bosses.

This is me. And I feel it’s unacceptable at my work to say I want to do my job and do it well but only do my job, ie not the extra, ie I don’t want a promotion in two minutes. It should be acceptable to say that, but it’s not.

Agree fully

My Dh works in a company that I would think is unusually progressive in this regard. They have had equal leave policies before they were the norm and strict equality policies about male / female ratios for promotion. It's an industry that was male dominated, like most industries but is very even now, in fact tipping slightly the other way.

It's quite a structured company with a rigid pathway of promotion. The ratio of men to women is roughly even at junior level, and up to mid management and higher management. But at the most senior management it is significantly higher men, despite offering exactly the same promotion opportunities. The fact is some female senior managers have stepped down to prioritise their families, many mid management have requested shorter hours and significantly less women apply for the most senior roles because they don't want them.

It's interesting to observe. The reality is many women feel guilty about not being at home more, most men do not. I also think there is an element of practicality and less ego with women, if you are working hard and very well paid at middle management then why on earth take on more work, whereas many men want to progress to the highest level for the status alone. I should add despite the gender imbalance at the very senior level, there is little sexism compared to most workplaces because of the very even balance throughout the company.

5 day working weeks aren't compatible with family life and child rearing.

Men accept that and choose to prioritise work over childrearing and women don't accept that and choose to go part time or try and do both at the same time to make it work.

I don't think funded childcare is the answer, I can afford childcare but I don't want my children to be in childcare for their whole childhoods so I've gone part time. It's not a cost issue it's a I want to see my young children whilst they are awake more than 2- 3 hours a day issue.

Make shorter working weeks the norm across the board and if women can work the same hours as their male counterparts without actively having to go part time then everyone wins. Including the men who can now pick up more of the childcare and the mental load (ha fucking ha).

Yep. And that bias comes from men, who have the most power in the workplace, so it’s a self perpetuating cycle. Men are biased towards men because either explicitly or not, they believe that men are inherently better at things than women.
That won’t be acknowledged as a reason, because it isn’t fashionable to believe that sexism exists and that men don’t believe we are equal to them.

I heartily agree with you on that one.

I worked in an ftse 100 company where woman and men were pretty much equally represented at senior and board level. Those woman who were at senior and director levels were generally child free.

What holds woman back, on the whole its maternity and children. Woman who don't have kids can easily compete with men, put in the extra hours in just like their male colleagues, get to and operate at the top level. I've once worked for a very driven director who took a couple of weeks maternity and returned full-time to work (husband was stay at home). However, that's not an option for most of us.

Why did I retire early, aged parents and MIL to look after. Don't get me wrong, it was a privilege that I was able to and could afford to do this. However, I have friends who are trying to balance their jobs and caring for elderly parents.

We don't see anyone at leadership level that has anything remotely resembling a decent work life balance, so it's hard to picture ourselves there. We also don't have many women in that position.

Even though women live longer than men, they spend more of their lives in bad health, so many are holding back because of health issues.

Lack of policies around fertility treatment etc.

Non backfill of women on maternity leave, so the team can be resentful on the woman's return to work.

This shit about women "having it all" is total and utter crap

^

Absolutely true

We're doing it all instead

This. (The only woman in the team.) Men who seem not to realise they could do things themselves to make things better. Like, if you're a hiring manager, offer a woman equal pay, rather than say, "oh, she didn't negotiate as much." You know the fucking numbers and equal pay has been the law for over half a century. You can make the decision to pay fairly instead of making excuses. And if she's being paid as much as her peers, she might be able to afford more childcare, a more reliable car or housing without mould, and you won't end up giving 26% pay rises to level her up.

And things like that.

Completely agree, it is pretty annoying
so many posters essentially saying women who don’t have kids aren’t discriminated against.

And even if we focused just on biological differences alone (which we shouldn’t) women who are not mothers can often experience range of health issues specific to women the most common among them being painful periods and PmDD etc which are not properly understood.