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

Correct.

It’s baffling some of these responses because so many studies show there’s bias towards men , even by other women, at all stages of the recruitment stages as well when it comes to things like making promotion decisions. And it’s not limited to women who have children.

Same also applies to ethnicity and disability. Again this isn’t people playing victim. It’s well evidenced and documented. There are very biased at play in workplaces based on who someone is at first sight.

You can’t challenge prejudice and bias if you don’t acknowledge it.

I prefer having male colleagues and managers, in my experience they don’t seem to have cliques.

OMG, they so do! They gossip and bitch like anything, too. They just don't call it that. Sharing information, networking.

Offer legal aid to every woman who is discriminated against by shitty employers when they are pregnant or during their first year after maternity leave.

A statutory scale of compensation that an employer would be forced to pay if they didn't stick to employment law relating to pregnancy/maternity discrimination.

It would put a stop to the regular abuse by employers, knowing that women on maternity leave cannot afford a solicitor.

Exactly and the fact there is discrimination even among males as you say - white men getting better opportunities than black men for example - makes the idea that men don’t discriminate against childfree women laughable.

It’s really not just about childcare/maternity.

I have on many, many occasions been assumed to be junior to a man I’m actually senior too. Even when I’ve been that man’s manager. The assumption is that the man must be the more senior person. My experience has been that it’s overwhelmingly men who make that assumption.
I’ve also very often had my ideas and achievements attributed to men on the team. Sometimes this has been repeated even when I’ve said “no, that was me” and they’ve apologised- they then went on to say it again!
It all runs very deep. We don’t have the overt workplace subjugation of the 60s, but the feelings that senior jobs belong to men are still there.

@FictionalCharacter

We don’t have the overt workplace subjugation of the 60s, but the feelings that senior jobs belong to men are still there.

Absolutely, that basically sums it up. None of what you said surprises me. Heard and seen all this subtle discrimination before but I’m amazed now having RTFT that it appears a lot of women in 2025 aren’t aware of these types of internal biases and assumptions that are made in the workplace.

Look at how America keeps refusing
to vote for women presidents and in the case of the two who got the closest to being elected but still failed neither of them had young children. Hilary’s child was an adult and Kamala didn’t even have a (biological) child.

Yes I know people had various reasons for not voting for either and the reasons are complex, but there are definitely some men who didn’t want to vote for a woman.

I mean heck there are men right now discussing on Twitter about the idea of removing women’s right to vote. It will never happen of course but how do they think men with those mindsets will operate in a workplace when faced with a woman? Those are the extremists but there are others with far less extreme views too whose
“professional” judgements and performance evaluation decisions etc will be coloured by their bias.

My own male relative unfortunately said something sexist about “female bosses” and it had nothing to do with her parental status and everything to do with the fact he holds some misogynistic views.

I know that this view may not be popular, but, where I worked (a university), I quite often saw women promoted because they were women. All other things being equal…or sometimes not quite …the female candidate was chosen to get more balanced sex ratios, especially in more traditionally male dominated areas.

And I actually hated this.

I don’t think it’s fair and I would personally hate to think I won out over another candidate simply because of my sex. Obviously things were very unfair in the past, and all the issues discussed above make it harder for women in the workplace. I just don’t think the solution is to sideline those men today who bear no responsibility for what happened historically or for their biology. Though taking an equal responsibility in the home is quite another matter! Yes, we need to address unfairness towards women, but being unfair towards men to the extent of biasing certain job interviews is not the answer imho.

Diversity and gender quotas are great if they’re used the right way…to check that you’re not discriminating against certain groups of people. But I don’t want to be hired because the company needs to check a box or because they feel have to hire me rather than they want to. I don’t want to be a token woman.

One thing I don’t think has been mentioned is that men seem to have a biological urge to be the provider. We have all heard stories about young blokes messing around, their girlfriend gets pregnant and the next thing they start knuckling down and getting a job.
So potentially we have women with a biological urge to nurture, and men with a biological urge to provide, and in the workplace the man is always going to be more driven. I have worked in the private consulting sector and have seen men put up with abusive bosses and back breaking deadlines that would have led me as a woman to quit in disgust. But they don’t quit, they try harder until they wind up in a GPs office having a nervous breakdown. I don’t think it’s controversial to say that many men have a cut throat drive to succeed as providers that women might not share, and all the free childcare in the world won’t change that.

It's not that simple though and often the inequalities in a relationship don't show until after children arrive.

What do the women do then? Leave -usually making themselves and their children poorer?

Stay - and put up with doing it all so their children don't lose out or live in squalor?

Stay and don't do it all meaning that the children lose out and/or live in squalor

Stay and have constant arguements about the man stepping up and doing more leading to everyone having a miserable life.

Very rarely is it the case that the women 'refuses to martyr herself' and the man happily picks up the slack without any resistance.

There are no good options for women when it turns out they ended up with a dud who refuses to do their share and I don't blame any of them for choosing to put up with it for the sake of a stable home for their children.

Wow, you lot are so eloquent in the way you describe things
you’re also made me see things I didn’t before
your right even if women don’t have children there are still changes in the workplace
I don’t know how i honestly didn’t see that before
maybe just because I don’t affect me personally doesn’t mean it doesn’t for many

@JennyTals It’s rare and nice to see an OP genuinely being open to different perspectives and looking at things differently, so kudos to you.

I don’t know how i honestly didn’t see that before maybe just because I don’t affect me personally doesn’t mean it doesn’t for many

In fairness to you (and others who seem unaware) I do appreciate that sexism (and other isms) can be very subtle and insidious and there was a time I too would have (wrongly) believed and claimed I hadn’t experienced workplace sexism.

It's why an understanding of unconscious bias is important- if someone gropes you beside the photocopier, that's easy to recognise as sexual harassment. But a manager might genuinely not realise he gave John the big project because he could more easily see his capabilities ("people like me") and then John has proven experience, so he's safer to put on the next big project, etc. It can be very difficult to recognise that that initial decision was made for unconscious reasons (because it's unconscious...)

And people will find excuses and reasons even when you do pull them up on unequal treatment. And tell you you're just being oversensitive.

@JennyTals havent read the replies but the problems you have raised are due to individual women and not all womenkind eg some women have partners that share the load and they are able to balance career and motherhood as both are important.

Absolutely this!
I have worked in a male dominated environment my entire career. There has always been an undercurrent of bias towards men over women.
Men cannot work with women in a male dominate environment without at some point drifting over the professional boundary into ‘trying it on’ with a female colleague. Seen and experienced it in EVERY single company I’ve worked for.
Women are expected to have thick skin and deal with it.
Having children killed my employed career.
In fact when I was 5 weeks pregnant with my first, I remember telling my line manager in confidence to give as much notice to allow for alternative arrangements when the time came around. Within one day, the whole management found out and one of the Managers (male) stormed into my team office (all men) and loudly queried me in front of my team ‘when am I leaving’? I was only 5 weeks pregnant and not even obliged to say anything at that point. But now my team were aware.
Then, the same manager went out and stormed back in and walked around my other team members and openly voiced that each one was getting a £10k pay rise, all except me. HR was useless and did nothing except ask the director (male) to talk to me. Just got an apology.
I tried very hard to do my job upon returning after maternity leave and dropping to 3 days per week, but it became obvious that I was being handed all of the most difficult projects to force me to leave.
Also, OH was no use either because guess what, being male, he automatically felt he had the right to put his career first and so provided zero support regarding flexibility and childcare, even though his company has a Family Policy for this very purpose.
i am now full time freelance, still working in the same industry and still feel like i am living of the scraps.

Agree with this. Even @Golfortennis post could be, I think, an example of this. I mean yes, it may well.be true that a slightly less experienced women is chosen over a more qualified man and I am frankly fine with that - change doesn't happen without effort. But I suspect that quite often, the perception that the women got the job because of her sex is actually because we so often instinctively assume the man is a better choice.

I saw some statistics about this in politics once. The idea being that you review whether me or women are voted for when there is one of each. Men still get voted for more often. This disparity is amplified when you take a look at experience and skills and how often the woman is actually the one with the experience.

Agree with this. Even post could be, I think, an example of this. I mean yes, it may well.be true that a slightly less experienced women is chosen over a more qualified man and I am frankly fine with that - change doesn't happen without effort. But I suspect that quite often, the perception that the women got the job because of her sex is actually because we so often instinctively assume the man is a better choice.

Not at all, I’m actually sorry to say. Sexism towards men does happen too now, and it was particularly obvious in the previously male-dominated subject area of the university I’m speaking about.

Any female applicants were at an immediate advantage because of their sex.

You mightn’t want to believe me @OhBling and I can’t make you, but I know it to be absolutely true.

These policies are put in place with the best of intentions and they may be fair at a societal level. That doesn’t automatically make them fair at an individual level and they’re often not.

Random reflections from me - senior role, male dominated industry, young children:

The inequality of caring responsibilities is a biggie. my friend’s husband works at the same company, same level, and she asked how I manage to go to most of the kids’ plays, star of the week assemblies etc as he apparently ‘can’t possibly manage to fit them in’. that’s rubbish, especially when you get to a certain level. You block out the occasional 2-4 slot in your calendar, you don’t have to tell anyone what you’re doing, you make up the time later. So, even in 2025, senior men are lazily following their 1980s counterparts and prioritising their jobs over their family life.

ditto though, many women underneath me can’t ever commit to anything from 3 onwards due to school pick-up. If their male counterparts are always active from 3-6, they will end up being more ‘seen’ and this will help their career. A lot of these junior women seem to have accepted it as their lot that school pick-ups and other child related responsibilities should be with them (and no, I don’t think it’s especially that they want to). A lot of relationships to me look quite unequal, with men perceiving (and women accepting) that their careers are less important - you see it on here all the time. I out-earn DH by 7x but both of our careers are equally important and both of us put an equal amount of effort into our shared family. The same often doesn’t seem to be true where a male partner is the higher earner.

Agree 100% with the recruitment bias - I’ve challenged promotion readiness of younger male colleagues while my counterparts have sponsored them because ‘they’ve got a great following’ and ‘they’re very present in the community’ - read: they’re always ready to socialise at the pub after work. Dig under the surface and a lot of the time their supposedly stellar project work is being completed by junior women who haven’t shouted about it.

Things that hold women back.

Men.

Other women.

I really hope an essay wasn't needed.

Women are held back by there nit being a female equivalent of a 'good bloke'. I've lost count of the amount of promoted men who are introduced as a good bloke - and they may well be on drinking terms with the other blokes but rarely can they do the actual job. Seeing mediocre chumps promoted demoralises those who can never be good blokes but who are just getting on with the work - and women are likely to make up most of that demoralised group.

The Nordic countries don't appear to have any angst about this and have better gender representation than elsewhere.

I can't get hung up about quotas and women who do aren't helping themselves. It's not about tokenism, it's about getting people to recruit people who aren't in their own image.

If all things are equal and you get chosen for the job because you are a woman, that is a good thing (in primary schools, it might be the other way round - get some male teachers in them).

Agree to an extent but I often see that women say their husbands jobs are far too important for them to take days off for unwell children so it’s constantly the mother taking the time off. It should be more equal as otherwise the woman’s career is always going to take a backseat. Women need to have that expectation of partners we choose to have children with

I do think it’s a good thing in ways - I think the intention is good and hopefully long term it’ll help. In the meantime I’ve seen some young lads get shafted. What happened to women in the past (and of course still does) happens to them instead now as we try to even things up. It’s not exactly comfortable watching. The historical wrongs aren’t their fault.

If all things are equal and you get chosen for the job because you are a woman, that is a good thing.
And if all things aren’t equal, but being female gives an extra advantage that secures the job? Is that still ok?

In my experience part of the problem is that overt misogyny, or just downright rudeness, isn't called out by senior people. Men are permitted to talk over women or diminish their knowledge/experience/expertise.

I was in a meeting and someone complained about the way a task was performed and asked why it was performed the way it was. I was the subject matter expert in the room and explained it: it was clear that it was performed in a particular way because that linked it into the preceeding and succeeding tasks. Doing it differently would have broken the overall process. The original 'complainer' then said "well, I don't know anything about this process, but you're wrong". (Oh, to have the confidence of a clueless man!)

At this point, I expected the senior in the room (my boss) to say or do something to support me. All I got was crickets.

Since that day I've been conscious of this type of behaviour and will speak up if I see it happening to someone else.

This is all so interesting